uNMEN disguised in military fatigues
hauled 18 Shias
off buses on
Tuesday and shot them dead
in cold blood in Gilgit.
Terrorist group Jundallah
claimed responsibility for the
attack through its commander Ahmed Marwat.
The government of GilgitBaltistan announced a threeday of mourning over the loss
of life and all educational institutes and public offices will
remain closed in Gilgit for the
next three days.
The attack took place in the
northern district of Kohistan,
which neighbours Swat valley, a
former Taliban stronghold.
Police said the attackers
flagged down buses, climbed
on board asking passengers
whether they were Shia or
Sunni Muslim, then dragged
out the Shias and shot them.
Another eight people
were injured in the attack, including two women and three
children. “The motive was sectarian. The gunmen were wearing army uniform,” Mohammad
Ilyas, the police chief in Kohistan
told AFP after the attack near the
town of Harban, 130 miles (210
kilometres) north of the capital.
One bus and three
minibuses were travelling
from Rawalpindi, the city
where the Pakistan Army is
headquartered, to the northern town of Gilgit.
“They checked the identity of the passengers, got the
Shias off the vehicles and shot
them dead,” Ilyas said. “The
dead were all male.”
Kohistan administration
chief, Aqal Badshah, said 18
people were killed by eight
attackers
armed
with
Kalashnikovs and wearing
military dress.
It was the fourth militant
attack in the country’s north
since Thursday, raising fears
that violence linked to a Taliban insurgency is again on
the rise following a decline in
recent months.
Human rights groups have
heavily criticised the Pakistani
government for failing to crack
down on sectarian violence between the country’s majority

Sunni and minority Shia Muslim communities that has
killed thousands.
Local MP Abdul Sattar
Khan linked the ambush to the
murder of two Sunni Muslims
a few days ago in Gilgit.
“The people of the area
had vowed they would take
revenge,” Khan told AFP by
telephone.
Some of Tuesday’s victims were from Gilgit, where
the government ordered offices and schools to close as a
safety precaution, and advised residents to stay indoors, local administration
chief Tariq Arqam told AFP.
Residents said Gilgit was
tense and roads deserted.
Shops in most areas were
closed and traffic very thin,
they added.
KP Information Minister
Mian Iftikhar Hussain blamed
the attack on militants.
“The people behind this
attack are terrorists. They
want to trigger sectarian violence in the country. We don’t
want to go into the details because we don’t want them to
succeed in their nefarious designs,” he said.
“We will give cash compensation to the families of
the victims. The bodies of the
dead have been sent to Gilgit
for burial,” he added.
Authorities had earlier insisted Islamist militants were
not active in the area, although Kohistan borders
Swat, where Pakistan in 2009
managed to put down a twoyear Taliban insurgency.
Only a few days ago, a
blast in Parachinar had killed
28 Shias and injured 36 close
to an Imambargah.
Two similar bus attacks
targeting Shias had taken
place last year as well.
On September 20, gunmen had shot dead 26 Shia
pilgrims travelling to Iran,
causing the deadliest attack
on the minority community
for more than a year.
Just like Tuesday’s attack,
gunmen had ordered pilgrims
off their bus, lined them up
and assassinated them in a
volley of gunfire in Mastung,
50kms south of Quetta.
Later on October 3, terrorists had attacked a bus carrying Shias in the outskirts of
Quetta, killing 13 people.

Wednesday, 29 February, 2012 Rabi-ul-Sani 6, 1433

Who will head ISI?
Kayani calls on PM
Gilani meets Zardari later to discuss ISI
chief’s appointment, Tribal Areas, Afghanistan

g

ISLAMABAD
STAff RePoRT

The top civilian and military leadership on Tuesday discussed the appointment of the new director
general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to replace Lt General
Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who is retiring
on March 18, along with other important matters pertaining to the security and defence of the country.
Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez
Kayani called on Prime Minister
Yousaf Raza Gilani, following which

the PM met President Asif Ali Zardari
to discuss important matters related to
national defence and security.
“The civilian and military leadership had detailed discussions on different important issues such as latest
situation in Afghanistan, the country’s Tribal Areas as well as the security situation in Balochistan,” said an
official, requesting anonymity.
He, however, said the issue that
was talked about more during the two
meetings was the appointment of a
new ISI chief to replace General Pasha
but no final decision had been taken
whether to give another one-year ex-

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani talks to Chief of Army Staff General
Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani, who called on him at Prime Minister’s House on Tuesday.
tension to the incumbent or otherwise.
General Pasha is reportedly not interested in another extension and some
names of senior military officials are already circulating in the media as his
possible successors. However, a source
said that extension to Gen Pasha could
not be ruled out in the present geo-

strategic environment. “The army
chief had deliberations with the
prime minister on the appointment
of a new ISI chief after which the
prime minister discussed the same
matter in detail with the president.

It’s goIng to
be more
than a
POL price hike of up to Rs 8.67 per litre on the cards from 1st
ISLAMABAD
AMeR SIAL

The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority
(OGRA) has worked out an increase of
2.7 percent to 7.3 percent in POL products due to an increase in international
oil market prices, recommending an increase of between Rs 2.75 and Rs 8.67
per litre for various products with effect
from March 1.
An official source said OGRA had estimated an increasing trend in international POL prices, as they had
risen during February while the
rupee had devalued against the dollar in the same period.
OGRA has hinted at an increase
in the price of motor spirit
(petrol) by 2.9 percent or Rs
2.75 per litre, which will take
the sale price to Rs 97.66 per
litre, High Octane Blended
Component (HOBC) by 7.3
percent or Rs 8.67 hike to
Rs 126.87 per litre, High
Speed Diesel (HSD) by 2.7
percent or Rs 2.82 from
Rs 103.46 to Rs 106.28
per litre, Light Diesel Oil
(LDO) by 3.4 percent or
Rs 3.08 to Rs 93.29 per
litre and Super Kerosene
Oil (SKO) by 4.8 percent
or Rs 4.38, which would
raise the sale price to Rs
96.40 per litre.
OGRA, the source said,
had again recommended

retaining the prices of POL products at
the current level and adjusting the differential through the GST and petroleum levy.
The Petroleum Ministry and
OGRA have been recommending absorbing the shock through taxation on
POL products, but the Ministry of Finance, faced with a massive fiscal
deficit of over six percent, has been
opposing the recommendation for the
last several months.
The source said the Petroleum

Ministry was supporting OGRA’s recommendation by stressing that the reduction in levy on petrol and diesel
could help bring their prices at par
with CNG and help reduce the demand for natural gas. However, the Finance Ministry had rejected the proposal
last month. The government collects Rs
23 billion per month from taxation of
POL products. It collects Rs 16 billion
per month in sales tax on POL products,
while another Rs 7 billion are collected
in petroleum levy.

Continued on page 04

contempt case

SC allows PM
to produce Sethi
as his witness
ISLAMABAD
MASooD ReHMAn

The Supreme Court allowed
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza
Gilani on Tuesday to produce
on March 7 his former
principal secretary Nargis
Sethi as his defence witness
in the ongoing contempt
proceedings against him for
not complying with the
court’s December 16, 2009
order in the National
Reconciliation Ordinance
(NRO) case. A sevenmember special bench
headed by Justice Nasirul
Mulk and comprising Justice
Asif Saeed Khosa, Justice
Sarmad Jalal Osmany,
Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan,
Justice Ijaz Ahmed
Chaudhry, Justice Gulzar
Ahmed and Justice
Muhammad Ather Saeed,
also allowed Aitzaz Ahsan,
counsel for the prime
minister, to submit
summaries of May 21 and
September 21, 2010 along
with the orders passed by his
client in response to the
court’s orders about
reopening of Swiss cases
against the president. Aitzaz
Ahsan pleaded before the
court that his client never
intended to act in contempt
of court but followed the
rules of business. The court
disposed of an application by
Aitzaz, in which he stated
that his client acted upon the
advice of concerned officials
that graft cases against
President Asif Ali Zardari
could not be reopened in
Switzerland, as he enjoyed
complete immunity under
Article 248 of the
constitution. He requested
the court to summon former
law minister Babar Awan,
law secretary Masood Chishti
and former principal
Continued on page 04

PDF E-Paper LHR_Layout 1 2/29/2012 8:50 PM Page 2

02 News
Today’s

wednesday, 29 February 2012

lahoRe

newS

People: fix MM Alam? LDA: Yawn

Govt consults all on national issues: firdous

Story on Page 07

Story on Page 06

CaRtoon

Quick
Look

Senate ticket not my fee: Aitzaz
ISLAMABAD
STAff RePoRT

Barrister Aitzaz Ahsen on Thursday said the
Senate ticket awarded to him was not his fee for
contesting the contempt case against the prime
minister.
Talking to reporters at the Supreme Court
building after adjournment of contempt proceedings, he said he was hopeful of getting his
client discharged and acquitted from the contempt of court charges. He said those who were
hoping that the prime minister would be handcuffed today (Tuesday) were disappointed, as
all decisions were taken in by court per law and
the constitution.
Aitzaz said he had prayed the court to sum-

mon all three witnesses, including former law
minister Dr Babar Awn, law secretary Masood
Chishti and Cabinet Secretary Nargis Sethi, who
had signed the summaries for not writing a letter to foreign countries for reopening cases
against President Asif Ali Zardari.
He said he wanted to bring all documentary
evidence on the record. The senior lawyer said
the Supreme Court had allowed him to summon PM’s former principal secretary Nargis
Sethi as witness and also cross-examine her.
He said according to his sources, Babar
Awan and Masood Chishti had refused to appear as witnesses, however, if documents presented before the court proved correct, there
would be no need of Awan and Chishti to appear as witness.

Page 13

Missing persons, huMan rights violations

Political parties want
constitution, relevant
laws amended

Representatives of all major parties to move and approve a resolution
demanding immediate release of all missing persons, curbs on agencies’ powers
g

ISLAMABAD

A

TAHIR nIAz

S the issue of missing
persons is taking centre
stage, political parties
have come into action to
curb the “unlimited and
unchecked” powers of spy agencies
and recommended major amendments to the constitution and relevant laws to tackle the issue.
Representatives of major political parties on Tuesday proposed a
number of amendments to the constitution and relevant laws, ranging
from amendments in the Army Act
to Actions (in Aid of Civil Power)
Regulation, 2011 for FATA and
PATA, to address the issue of missing persons and alleged violation of
human rights in the country.
According to a communiqué issued after a seminar titled “Fundamental Rights and Case of Missing
Persons” organised by the Centre for
Discussions and Solutions (CDS), all
political parties present in the seminar, including the PPP, PML-N, JuIF, PTI, JI and those having
representation in the National Assembly and Senate, would move and
approve a resolution in both the
Houses to demand immediate release of all missing persons from the
custody of spy agencies.
Qazi Hussain Ahmad chaired the
seminar while Senator Raja Zafrul
Haq, Fazlur Rehman, Imtiaz Safdar
Warraich, Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Amna
Masood Janjua, Siddiqul Farooq,
Akram Zaki and Dr Humayun of the
PTI attended. The draft proposal for
amendments to relevant laws sought
fprmation of a high-powered parliamentary committee, assisted by experts in law to follow up on the
implementation of the communiqué
and ensure release of all missing
persons and to stop law enforcement
agencies from undermining the
rights of citizens.
It said Actions (in Aid of Civil
Power) Regulation, 2011 for FATA
and PATA, promulgated by the president on June 23, 2011 and given ret-

rospective effect from February 1,
2008, empowering state agencies
with unlimited and unchecked authority, was repugnant to the provisions of constitution as interpreted
by the Supreme Court in the
Mehram Ali case (PLD 1998 SC
1445) and should be withdrawn immediately.
Section 2(1) (d) of Pakistan Army
Act, 1952, which subjects civilians to
the Army Act and Military Courts
should, be immediately repealed as
this section was liable to and had
been misused over the decades, and
by subjecting civilians to the Army
Act and summary trials, it undermined their constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights and formed
the root cause of the current saga of
missing persons, it added.
The communiqué further recommended that members of the armed
forces, tried and convicted under the
Army Act, should be granted right of
appeal before the High Courts to uphold their right to fair trial guaranteed under Article 10A of the
constitution to all citizens of Pakistan, as such principles of natural
justice were upheld in all the democratic countries of the world and
Pakistan ought not be an exception.
Cases of persons subject to the
Army Act and aggrieved by judgements of military courts or administrative orders of military authorities
due to denial of a meaningful right to
appeal before an independent judicial forum may be reheard by the
Supreme Court under Article 184(3)
for being a matter of public interest.
Articles 8(3) and 199(3) be
amended and repealed being prejudicial to the fundamental right to
life, liberty, security, dignity and fair
trial of persons subject to army,
navy, air forces acts, as otherwise
guaranteed by the constitution to all
citizens.
The seminar also demanded that
an inquiry commission be formed
under the chief justice of the Sindh
High Court to ascertain the facts surrounding the abduction of Dr Aafia
Siddiqui from Karachi and her hand-

ing over to uS authorities, fix the responsibility for the surrender of Dr
Aafia Siddiqui and hundreds of other
Pakistani citizens to the uS in
breach of the Extradition Act 1972,
and mandatory due process requirements under law and order registration of cases against all persons
responsible for such heinous acts.
Speaking on the occasion, Qazi
Hussain Ahmed explained how the
issue of missing persons and enforced disappearances was garnering
a bad name for the country.
“Civilised nations think it is their
duty to protect the life and property
of their citizens. But the history of
Pakistan is replete with numerous
cases of missing persons,” he said,
adding that the disappearance of a
person caused much more agony for
the family than his eventual death.
Calling it the government’s responsibility to gather information
about the missing persons, Qazi
lamented that state institutions were
involved in enforced disappearances
and extrajudicial killings still continued across the country.
Fazlur Rehman said politics of
terror were a global phenomenon in
which human rights violations, unconstitutional acts of omission and
commission and flagrant breaches of
rules and regulations were important corollaries. On Balochistan, he
warned the government and state institutions that the British failed to
suppress the freedom movements
even after a rule of 100 years.
“If the grievances of Baloch people are not addressed in time, a serious crisis could emerge in the
country,” he added.
Giving a detailed account of
missing persons, Defence of Human
Rights Chairperson Amna Masood
Janjua said according to the
Amnesty International, HRCP,
Human Rights Watch and other organisations, almost 2,000 to 4,000
citizens had been picked up by agencies’ operatives since 9/11.
The number of cases registered
with DHR was 1,015, but the count
was constantly rising, she said.

PDF E-Paper LHR_Layout 1 2/29/2012 8:50 PM Page 3

wednesday, 29 February 2012

FoReign newS

aRtS & enteRtainMent

SPoRtS

Sceptics question Putin ‘pre-election’ plot timing

Veena Malik, Bobby Darling kiss and tell

Kohli hero as India stay alive in tri-series

News 03
CoMMent
Access denied
Women voters stopped

Disturbing disclosure
Is the commission hearing this?

Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi says:
Reality check needed: If we want to set our house in order…

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)
President Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday said
that Pakistan stood isolated in the comity
of nations because of the ill-conceived policies of the rulers.
Talking to Pakistani journalists from his
residence in Jeddah, he said, “We will strive
hard for the stability, development and prosperity of Pakistan.”
“It is being said that we have compromised on the issue of 20th Amendment. If
we have compromised, then what about the
movement we had launched for the reinstatement of judges. Was that also a compromise?” he said.
He said the 20th Amendment was vital
for the future of the country and the continuity of democratic system. “We are trying
to remove the government through democratic means, and demanding for new elections,” he said.
He called the resolution on Balochistan
moved in the uS Congress was a “wrong
step”. “We however have to review why the
situation has taken this turn. The need is
there to address the real issue and convening
an APC merely on this issue will be of no
avail,” he stressed. “We have told the government in categorical terms that the Balochistan problem cannot be resolved unless the
injustices done to the people of Balochistan
are removed. We don’t have any desire to
participate in an APC which is unproductive,” he added.
To a question he said, “It is our demand
that the killers of Akbar Bugti be brought to
justice and missing persons from Balochistan be recovered and their due rights be
given. “If Akbar Bugti was rebelling against
the country then why Pervez Musharraf did
not provide evidence against him,” he asked.
About the possibility of a merger by
Sindh National Front into the PML-N, he

Shahbaz to besmoothly
elected PML-N’s
Punjab president
Lahore: The PML-N has called its general
council meeting on March 5 to elect its
Punjab chapter leadership, including
president and secretary general, in which
Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif is expected to be
elected as Punjab president, Pakistan Today
has learnt. PML-N spokesman Pervaiz Rashid
confirmed the election date and said that the
party wanted a strong candidate as its Punjab
president, as general elections were
approaching. Going by the PML-N’s tradition,
Shahbaz was expected to be smoothly elected,
as no other candidate looked interested to
become the provincial chief. But no candidate
could be considered as favourite for the slot of
secretary general. A PML-N leader said that
Tehmina Daultana, Samiullah Khan and one
of the Khosas could become the Punjab
secretary general. But other party leaders
disputed that claim saying that Tehmina was
too senior for the slot while Samiullah, a
young candidate from South Punjab could be
a suitable candidate. STAff RePoRT
said that talks were underway with Mumtaz
Bhutto but the matters had not yet been finalised with him. “I will meet Shah Zain
Bugti on my return to the country so that a
solid solution to the problem of Balochistan
could be ascertained,” he said.
Regarding the upcoming elections, he
hoped that they would take place in transparent manner. “We hope that our position
will be strong. In the past it was said that we
would get less seats but time proved that the
erstwhile government could not suppress the
public opinion despite enormous victimisation,” he said.

IsLamaBaD: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Tuesday advised President Asif Ali Zardari to appoint
Air Marshal Tahir Rafiq Butt as the new Chief of Air Staff of Pakistan Air Force. After his formal
appointment by the president, Air Marshal Tahir will take oath of his office in the next few days, as Chief of
Air Staff (CAS) Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman will leave the post on March 17. There was some
speculation in the media about extension being given to Air Chief Suleman, but he himself quashed them by
telling the media that he had no desire to seek another term and would step down on the set date. Air
Marshal Tahir was commissioned in General Duties (Pilot) Branch of PAF on March 6, 1977. He served as a
fighter pilot in various squadrons of PAF and has also qualified Flying Instructors’, Combat Commanders’,
Armed Forces War and Turkish War Courses. During his career, he has commanded a fighter squadron, a
fighter wing, an operational PAF Base and a Regional Air Command. In his last assignment, he was serving
as the deputy chief of the Air Staff (Personnel) at Air Headquarters, Islamabad. He is a recipient of Hilal-eImtiaz (Military), Sitara-e-Imtiaz (Military) and Tamgha-e-Basalat. STAff RePoRT

A Chinese woman and her
Pakistani interpreter were
shot dead by unidentified assailants in Jehangir Pura area
of Peshawar on Tuesday.
The Chinese woman was
a university student in Peshawar and belonged to Beijing. Per details, the Chinese
student and a local, Salman
Shams, were passing through
the congested Jehangir Pura
Bazaar when some unidentified assailants showered them
with bullets. Both of them
died on the spot, while the attackers escaped the scene.

The Chinese woman was
identified as Jain Hua,
whereas Shams was a resident

of Nasar Bagh, Peshawar. The
reason behind the killing is
yet to be ascertained.

LonDon: Britain is seeking
transit accords with central
Asian countries to enable it to
ship billions of dollars of military equipment home from
Afghanistan after 2014 while
lessening its reliance on the
uncertain Pakistan route, officials said on Tuesday. British
Defence Secretary Philip
Hammond visited Kazakhstan
on Monday where he signed
an agreement allowing overflight access to transport military equipment to and from
Afghanistan, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said.
Hammond and Kazakh
President Nursultan
Nazarbayev also agreed to
start negotiations on an
agreement allowing military
equipment to be transported
overland. The agreements are
intended to give British forces
a route to ship some 11,000
containers and 3,000
armoured vehicles back to
Britain. ReUTeRS

APP/MonIToRInG DeSK

The National Commission on
the Status of Women-Pakistan
(NCSW) on Tuesday congratulated Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy for receiving an Oscar
Award for her documentary
Saving Face, terming it an historic achievement.
The NCSW believed that it
was the victory of not only an
individual, but of a cause and
movement to protect the
rights and dignity of violence
ridden women in the country
that spanned over decades.
According to a statement,
she had chosen a subject
which was affecting thousands
of women.
“Sharmeen has made the
women of Pakistan proud and
has given a powerful message
to the women that they can
reach the height of glory if
they are provided with an enabling environment and encouraging space to best use

It said every year scores of
women and girls became direct victims of brutal acid attacks,
resulting
in
disfigurement of their faces
and in complete destruction of
their lives.
“We hope that this
achievement will contribute in
addressing the problem and
giving remedial help for the
victims,” the NCSW statement
said.
Separately, NCSW Communication Manager Tahira
Noor alleged that women were
prevented from voicing their
opinions and were deterred
from casting votes by Awami
National Party (ANP) and
Jamiat ulema-e-Islam Fazl
(JuI-F) in the recent by-elections held in the cities of Mardan and Mianwali.
According to Dawn News,
Tahira alleged that, “the political parties did not facilitate
women and stopped them
from casting their votes”.

PhC stays fuel surcharge in power bills
peshaWar: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday stayed the implementation
of fuel adjustment surcharge in the power bills and stopped NEPRA, PESCO, TESCO
and Water and Power from receiving power bills from the consumers. The PHC heard
the application from over 40 petitioners including industrialists against the fuel
adjustment surcharge imposed in electricity bills. The petitioners argued that the fuel
adjustment surcharge could not be collected from the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
as the province produces hydropower. The court also issued notices to the officials of
NEPRA, PESCO, TESCO and Water and Power and also ordered the KP deputy attorney
general and advocate general to appear in the court. The court also ordered issuance of
power bills without fuel adjustment surcharge within 10 days. InP

SC resumes hearing
Continued FRom page 28
He had alleged that Rs 140
million were distributed
among politicians during the
regime of President Ghulam
Ishaq Khan to manoeuvre
the 1990 elections.
The funds were only
given to right-wing politicians who would go on to
form the IJI, an alliance
pitched against the Pakistan
People’s Party (PPP). The IJI
was the final nail in ensuring
the formation of the PML
government headed by
Nawaz Sharif.
Affidavits and evidence
submitted by respondents
before the court and firsthand accounts from the beneficiaries
–
so
far
substantiate the allegations
that the ISI did give funds to
elements within the IJI.
However, the most important issue after ascertaining guilt is to figure out the
options available to the
Supreme Court to correct
this historical wrong.
Questions being asked,
albeit in a hushed manner,
are whether the court would
bar all guilty politicians and
parties from contesting fu-

InP

A report by Washingtonbased think tank on 26/11
Mumbai attacks had predicted that the Indo-Pakistan crisis was both
unresolved and unfinished,
and “further attacks by Pakistan-based, Inter-Services
Intelligence-trained terrorists were inevitable”.
A major report titled
‘The unfinished Crisis: uS
Crisis Management after the
2008 Mumbai Attacks’,
which is the first detailed account of how American
diplomats, intelligence officers and law enforcement
professionals reacted to the
terror strikes on November
26, 2008, has predicted that
the India-Pakistan crisis remains both unresolved and
unfinished, and further attacks by Pakistan-based ter-

rorists were inevitable, particularly since there is once
again an emerging rapprochement between New
Delhi and Islamabad.
The case study, published by The Stimson Center, the only Washington DC
think-tank, which has an exclusive programme on confidence building measures in
South Asia, said, “Indian
grievances remain unresolved, while Pakistani policies remain dangerously
subject to miscalculation.”
The study includes interviews with the then secretary
of state Condoleezza Rice,
erstwhile National Security
adviser Stephen Hadley, former ambassadors to India
and Pakistan David Mulford
and Anne Patterson respectively, and several other senior united States officials,
who were involved in uS crisis management in the after-

math of the 26/11 attacks.
Another related report
said that senior officials in
the outgoing George Bush
administration had prior experience in crisis management on the subcontinent
and they executed a crisis
management plan — Plan A
included familiar elements:
top-level diplomacy, highlevel official visits, playing for
time, and close cooperation
with British officials. But it
said, “There was no Plan B.”
The report said that in
the words of a former senior
official, Plan A was “first, to
show support for India. The
Bush administration was
very popular with the government of India, had
plenty of capital in the
bank. We went as a friend.
In Pakistan, the message
was to convey the seriousness of the situation, that
Pakistan needed to ‘own up’

1992, propping up what was
an insolvent bank as a favour
for its owner’s help in loaning money to the ISI in 1990
that was used for the creation of IJI and bankrolling
the campaigns of many opponents of the PPP.
In his written reply submitted to the Supreme Court
during the tenure of Sajjad
Ali Shah and reported by the
media, General Aslam Beg
had conceded that it had
been a routine for the ISI to
support favourite candidates
in elections under directives
of the successive chief executives.
Afterwards, former ISI
DG Lt Gen (r) Asad Durrani
had conceded in an affidavit
submitted with the Federal
Investigation Agency (FIA)
that his political cell received Rs 140 million from
Younis Habib for distribution among anti-PPP politicians at the behest of
General Mirza Aslam Beg.
The 1990 election was subsequently won by the IJI led
by Nawaz Sharif, who had
allegedly received Rs 3.5
million from the ISI for his
election campaign.

IsLamaBaD: The National
Database and Registration
Authority (NADRA), following directives of Interior Minister Senator Rehman Malik,
on Tuesday announced regularisation of more than
14,000 contract employees.
The decision was taken during a meeting held between
NADRA high-ups and the Interior Ministry in which
NADRA officials forwarded
recommendations in this regard to the Interior Ministry.
The recommendations would
then be forwarded to a special committee chaired by
Federal Religious Affairs
Minister Syed Khurshid
Ahmed Shah, in order to remove any legal and other
loopholes. After approval of
these recommendations, a
notification to regularise all
contract employees would be
issued. onLIne

More Mumbai-like, iSi-backed attacks
inevitable: US report
WASHINGTON

ture elections, especially
since many are still active in
politics.
What would be the punishment given to former military bosses who were privy
to this exercise and approved
its formal operation? And
lastly, what possible observation or ruling can the court
come up with to deter the ISI
and other intelligence agencies from this practice.
Most of the senior
lawyers suggest that the
court should constitute a
high-powered commission
not only to investigate the
particular incident highlighted by Asghar Khan, but
also other incidents in the
history of Pakistan where ISI
provided money to politicians.
They believe that it
would essential for democracy and national security in
the future.
The payment of up to Rs
140 million was allegedly
made under instructions of
Gen (r) Aslam Beg by the ISI
via the owner of Mehran
Bank, Younis Habib.
Intelligence funds were
deposited in Mehran Bank in

to the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.”
The report said apparently the reason there was no
Plan B was because according to one senior official, “We
didn’t think we needed one,”
and there was a kind of
hubris that Plan A just couldn’t fail and that Washington
could “keep a lid on the
India-Pakistan situation.”
The report said that despite the spectacular nature
of the 26/11 attacks and the
considerable loss of life,
“most uS officials saw this
crisis as less dangerous than
the 1999 Kargil and the
2001-2002
‘Twin-Peak’s
crises’,” which was the term
used in the study to describe
two periods of high tension
sparked by terrorist attacks.
“The Mumbai crisis carried risks of escalation, but
the challenges facing uS crisis managers were smaller in
scope and duration,” it said.

A petition was filed in the
Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday to seek the abolition of the
“political wing” of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) by declaring it in violation of the
fundamental rights enshrined
in the constitution. The petition
was filed by Al-Jihad Trust
Chairman Habibul Wahabul
Khairi under Article 184(3) of
the constitution, making the

ter, president – as the supreme
commander of armed forces,
army chief, ISI chief, the central
bank through its governor, former army chief Mirza Aslam
Beg, former ISI chief Asad Durrani and Gen (r) Hameed Gul.
The petitioner requested the
court to order that the enquiry
report on the alleged distribution of money among politicians by the ISI through
Mehran Bank be made public.

who will
head iSi
Continued FRom page 1
The decision on the
important matter is expected
in the next few days,” the
official said. A statement
issued from the PM office,
meanwhile, said the chief of
the army staff called on
Prime Minister Gilani at the
PM’s House and the
discussed security situation
of the country and the region.
“Professional matters
pertaining to the country’s
defence also came under
discussion,” it said. There
was no mention of a
discussion over the
appointment of the new ISI
chief, however, but it is
believed that this matter was
the main purpose of the toplevel consultations. The
prime minister and the
president also had talks on
the current political situation
with a focus on contempt of
court charges that Prime
Minister Gilani is facing in
the Supreme Court, as well as
the upcoming Senate polls.

two killed in
Balochistan
QuETTA
STAff RePoRT

Two people were killed in
separate firing incidents in
Quetta and Jhal Magsi on
Tuesday while a man was
kidnapped from Jaffarabad.
According to police,
unidentified armed men
entered the house of Mir Wais
in Pashtunabad area of Quetta
and shot the house owner
dead and fled. Police rushed to
the spot and moved the body
to hospital for autopsy. Police
said it was an incident of old
enmity, adding a case was
registered and investigations
were underway.

SC allows PM
Continued FRom page 1
secretary to the prime minister and incumbent Cabinet
Secretary Nargis Sethi, who
signed the summaries, as
court’s witnesses in the matter. He said these three
would endorse the draft of
the summaries sent to his
client. But the court rejected
his request, telling him that
he might produce them as
defence witnesses.
Aitzaz then told the
court that his client, being
the prime minister, did not
want to ask Awan and
Chishti to appear for his defence. Besides, he said according to his information
both the men had declined
to appear as defence witnesses. However, he said he
would produce Nargis Sethi
as defence witness on the
next hearing and would also
cross-examine her. The
court accepted the request.
He said the summaries
signed and sent by Awan and
Chishti led to contempt of
court case against his client.
He said his client was bound
to act on the advice of law
ministry’s officials. Both the
summaries were sent by the
then federal law minister
and the law secretary to the
Prime Minister’s Office advising him “not to write the
letter to prosecutors in
Switzerland (requesting that
money laundering cases
against President Asif Ali
Zardari be reopened)”.

Aitzaz pleaded that
under Article 187 of the constitution, the Supreme Court
was authorised to provide
complete justice, wherein
under Order 33 of the
Supreme Court Rules it was
also empowered to summon
evidence in any case.
Justice Nasirul Mulk
asked Aitzaz that he was directed by the court to file
documentary evidence in his
defence, by he still had not.
“Do you want to rely on the
two summaries mentioned
in your application?” Justice
Mulk asked Aitzaz.
However, Aitzaz submitted that he would submit the
documentary evidence and
also deliver arguments on
the contempt charge, keeping aside the defence of any
immunity. He said he just
wanted to prove that his
client did not defy the court
orders deliberately.
Justice Ejaz Afzal asked
Aitzaz to cross-examine the
documentary evidence submitted by the prosecution. But
Aitzaz stated that the prosecution had not presented any
witnesses, who could be crossexamined, adding that he was
counsel for the prime minister
in the contempt of court case,
having no concern with the
implementation of the NRO
verdict case.
At one point, Aitzaz said
the prosecution had deprived him from cross-examining by not making

Awan, Chishti or any other
as its witnesses.
Justice Osmany observed that the present special bench was formed for
the NRO implementation
case, but Aitzaz again submitted that he was representing his client before the
bench in the contempt case.
Aitzaz told the court that
he would not have to call any
other witnesses other than
Sethi if the court acknowledged that the draft of the
summaries was true.
To a court query, he said
it would be the person of
Yousaf Raza Gilani and not
the office of the prime minister to go behind the bars if
the court awarded imprisonment in the case.
Justice Nasirul Mulk observed that the matter related to the execution of the
prime minister’s official duties due to his failure. Aitzaz
then stated that the prime
minister did not know the
direct court order, adding
that his client was not ordered in his personal capacity, as the judicial directives
were meant for the federal
government including the
law
secretary.
Justice
Nasirul Mulk questioned as
to why the court order was
not implemented even when
the NRO review petition was
also dismissed?
The court later adjourned proceedings for
March 7.

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Tuesday rejected a bill seeking
disqualification of lawmakers, who had
dual nationality on the grounds that the
proposed legislation would overlap the existing law on the subject.
The committee considered the bill,
moved by PML-N woman lawmaker Tasneem Siddiqui and rejected it with majority
vote.
The PML-N MNA had moved the Pakistan Citizenship Amendment Bill 2011 in
December last year as private member bill
to disqualify the dual nationality holders
from holding the public offices in the country. The meeting was chaired by MNA
Abdul Ghafoor Chaudhry. The parliamentary body was of the view that such a law already existed according to which a
Pakistani citizen having dual nationality
could not be elected as MPA or MNA. “A
new legislation in this regard would be tantamount to overlapping the existing laws.
So it is better to dispose of it”, the majority
of the members opined.
The committee also rejected Political
Parties (Amendment) Bill, which was

moved by PPP MNA Palwasha Khan. The
bill sought reserved seats for people with
Rs 25,000 monthly income as well as one
million rupees worth of assets, in parliament.
The committee observed that such laws
for reserved seats was not practiced anywhere so it was not appropriate to approve
any piece of legislation on this subject.
The committee also took up a bill
moved by PPP MNA Nasir Ali Shah regarding a limit of expenses a candidate would
be allowed for contesting parliamentary
elections.
The bill wanted that a candidate in the
election should be made bound to inform
the Election Commission of Pakistan about
the actual expenses spent on contesting any
particular seat of parliament. It proposed a
spending limit of Rs 100,000 for a candidate of National Assembly and Rs 50,000
for provincial assemblies’ candidates. Besides it also sought complete ban on banners, hoardings and other publicity
campaigns, which cost millions of rupees.
The committee will meet again today
(Wednesday). PML-Q’s member of the
committee Riaz Fatyana demanded early
resolution of issues regarding accountability bill, pending with the standing committee since years.

Justice Riaz Ahmad Khan of the Islamabad High
Court (IHC) on Tuesday issued notices to the
defence secretary, National Engineering and
Scientific Commission (NESCOM) chairman and
others on a contempt of court petition filed
against some contractual employees of NESCOM
despite getting retirement from the same
department. During the course of hearing, the
counsel for four serving officials of NESCOM,
Raja Saifur Rehman said all the blue-eyed
officers of NESCOM, who had retired, were
holding the same positions on a contractual basis
and had obtained several extensions. The
petitioner named the NESCOM chairman and
defence secretary respondents. He said in this
way they had blocked the promotion of junior
officers, who were petitioners in the writ
petition, although their services were not
indispensable, adding that some of the junior
officials were more qualified than the seniors.
The lawyer said the Supreme Court had also
termed this practice a violation of fundamental
rights of the employees.

IsLamaBaD: Pakistan Army
Spokesman Major General
Athar Abbas on Tuesday denied
allegations about contacts
between Pakistani intelligence
officials and Osama Bin Laden.
Talking to an Arab TV channel,
he clearly rejected the so-called
“leaks” issued by a private uS
agency and said that they were
nothing but baseless
fabrication. These kinds of
charges were not new, as these
leaks were actually “old wine in
new bottle,” Abbas said. A
private security agency, which
worked for the CIA in the past,
claimed in an e-mail that they
found some documents from
Bin Laden’s compound, which
revealed that around 12 senior
ISI officials, including a retired
general, had links with Bin
Laden during his hiding in the
country. The names of those
officials were not mentioned by
the uS firm in the email. onLIne

In the wake of new chill of sabotage acts in the shape of bomb
blasts across the province, personnel of Bomb Disposal Squad
(BDS) defused two bombs, while
the third one exploded, destroying
a school in Peshawar on Tuesday.
Pakistan Today learnt through
its sources that in the first attempt of sabotage act by unknown
miscreants, explosives weighing
15kgs were placed in a bag near
Tatara Park in Hayatabad, Peshawar. Sources said an unknown
caller had informed police about a
bag full of narcotics (Charas) lying
open in a park.
When police reached the spot,
they found the bag and called the
BDS instead of opening the bag.
Personnel of BDS found 15kgs of

explosives in the bag along with
some narcotics.
Police sources said the bomb
aimed at targeting police personnel by setting up a trap through
the information of drugs.
On the other hand, wellplaced sources said one of the two
bombs planted by unknown militants targeting a primary school
in Razaar tehsil of district Swabi
exploded on Tuesday, resulting in
destruction to the institute, while
the second bomb was defused by
the BDS personnel in time.
Police officials said government primary school in Murad
Abad, Swabi, was the target of
militants who planted two bombs
inside the school building. One of
the bombs went off at midnight.
Police from a nearby post
reached the scene and seized the
unexploded bomb and defused it.

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06 News

wednesday, 29 February, 2012

Govt consults
all on national
issues: Firdous
ISLAMABAD

I

APP

N F O R M A T I O N Minister
Firdous Ashiq Awan on
Tuesday said the Pakistan
People’s Party (PPP)-led
government had “always
taken political parties on board”
on national issues, and had introduced decisions based on mutual
consensus.
“The PPP has introduced a culture of tolerance and co-existence in
the society,” she said while presiding
over a ministry meeting.
She said the unanimous and
back-to-back passage of 18th, 19th
and 20th Amendments by the parliament would help remove the loopholes and weaknesses in the political

system. The government has made
the parliament sovereign and
supreme and restored the 1973 Constitution in its original form, she
said. The minister said the approval
of the National Finance Commission
(NFC) Award with consensus had
strengthened the federation.
She said the government had always kept national interests supreme
while formulating foreign policy,
adding that it got the Shamsi Airbase
vacated from the uS after NATO attack at Salala check-post, besides suspending the NATO supply. She said
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani
had constituted a 14-member parliamentary committee to contact the
leadership of various political parties
regarding the proposed All Parties
Conference (APC) on Balochistan.

SAnGHAR: An army diver searches for bodies in the Mithrao Canal near Kandyari on Tuesday after an accident. ONLINE

THE government is aware of the weaknesses in the management of electricity
crises in the province and is taking appropriate measures to resolve the problems,
Balochistan Minister for Social Welfare Mir
Aghar Rind said on Tuesday.
He was addressing a policy dialogue on
“Management of Electricity Crises by
Provinces” held here under the auspices of
the Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan (CRCP).
The provincial minister said after the passage of the 18th Amendment, the Balochistan
government created a separate department of
energy which would be headed by a minister
with an administrative secretary. He said the
department would start functioning within two
months. He said although there were weaknesses in every department and governance issues, the government had already resolved the
issues and the rest would also be done.
He said the provincial government would
also resolve the problems of WAPDA in the
province. He said under his Rs 250 million annual development fund, he had allocated Rs
150 million for the education sector and Rs 50
each for health and solar energy in his con-

stituency. Amina Sohail, consultant for the
CRCP made her presentation about the introduction of Electricity Governance Initiative
Pakistan and Governance issues in electricity
crises. A number of stakeholders and representatives of the Quetta Electric Supply Company
and non-government organisations participated in the dialogue.
During the discussion, the participants said
Balochistan was getting 750MW of electricity
from the national grid against its need
1500MG. They said on the coastal line, if wind
mills with the cost of Rs 10 billion were installed, Balochistan could not only meet its energy needs, but could also have surplus energy.
They said due to the energy crisis, agriculture
in Balochistan had reached to the brink of complete destruction. They said it was the need of
the hour that agriculture sector should be given
more incentive for its progress so that not only
the food need of the country could be met, but
foreign exchange could be earned through export. Amina said it was a myth that the
provinces had provincial power before the 18th
Amendment, in fact the politician wanted to get
credit through the amendment. She said the
autonomy was guaranteed in the concurrent
list of the constitution, but never implemented.
She said the provinces had powers to generate
energy, but needed licences.

Waseela-e-Taleem, another innovative step
of the Benazir Income Support Programme
(BISP), is all set to be launched with the
prime objective of poverty alleviation
through education.
under the scheme, the conditional
grant to beneficiary families would be
linked with their school-going children.
The scheme would be a latest addition
in the various innovative measures of the
BISP, including demand driven vocational/technical training programme along
with provision of micro-financing to ensure
livelihood independence for millions of
beneficiary families.
Poverty and ignorance has direct linkage with extreme tendencies in any society
and hence, combating poverty has become
imperative to eradicate terrorism and create a peaceful and balanced society.

Being a catalyst of the socio-economic change in the society, the step
can be termed another landmark initiative of BISP with regard to long-term
poverty alleviation.
The scheme has been envisaged to promote education among the children belonging to downtrodden segment of society
and hence help them out in breaking the vicious circle of poverty.
The primary education of beneficiaries’
children is one of the major issues of the
poor class in Pakistan. Leading economists
of the country agree that the phenomenon
of poverty in Pakistan is multi-faceted and
needs to be tackled by applying a multipronged strategy.
In the pursuit of this vision, the government of Pakistan had earlier evolved
a comprehensive strategy through BISP,
besides taking steps aimed at immediate
relief i.e. monthly cash grant to beneficiary families.

KeSC’s sacked
workers may get
more company
■ Power utility likely to fire another 2,000 employees
KARACHI
GHULAM ABBAS

W

HILE sacking over
5,000 of its employees during the past
two
years,
the
Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) is likely to show
the door to another 2,000 employees
in the near future.
Moving towards its object to reducing the number of “non-core” employees, the power company’s
management has short-listed two
thousand more workers, ranging from
lower class staff to officers whose performances, what sources say, were unsatisfactory.
Through the “Annual Efficiency
Evaluation” process started in the
KESC, the employees of various departments, through their heads, were
divided into three categories of A,B
and C, and out of the thousands of
employees, at least 2,000 have fallen
in the last category with their performances were not up to the desired
mark.
The unfortunate employees, the
sources claimed, have been issued notices stating that their performances
are not satisfactory and were asked
for justification that “why they should
not be terminated from the company’
in view of their poor performance.
“The mentioned employees are likely
to be shown the door through a concession package, which may be announced shortly,” they said.
Despite the fear of losing their
jobs, however, a serious reaction from
the employees affected is unlikely as

the KESC has already defused the
months’ long protest of over 4,000
workers successfully.
The majority of the sacked 5,000
workers have already obtained the
Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS)
announced by the KESC while a minority has recently approached the
court against the move, but the power
utility’s foreign management is planning to oust more employees.
Throughout 2010, fierce clashes
and violent protests were witnessed
between the personnel of law enforcement agencies and thousands of
sacked KESC employees. The majority
of the “non-core” workers were forced
to opt for the VSS scheme, despite intervention of both provincial and federal governments and several political
parties.
However, the KESC officials denied any such separation scheme or
the management planning to oust the
staff.
“The KESC, like other organisations, evaluates performances of its
employees and those with better
records are highly encouraged while
the rest are also given further chance
to improve their performance. The annual performance evaluation programme has nothing to do with the
VSS or any other separation scheme,”
they claimed.
Meanwhile, Lateef Mughal of the
KESC People’s Workers union alleged
that the power company’s management was trying to reduce the number
of employees while outsourcing various departments.
He claimed that the regular employees were promised not to be re-

trenched from their jobs, but on the
contrary, Abraaj Group from time-totime continues to retrench employees
on one or the other reason.
“Firstly, the group offered senior
officers working on permanent basis
to be reappointed on contractual
basis,” he said. “Some officers accepted the offer, but most of them rejected it.”
After rejection from the employees, the KESC management created a
surplus pool and transferred over 300
employees into it. The employees
protested against the decision, but the
management never paid attention to
their grievances.
It also prepared new service rules
in March 2010 and under its cover,
forcefully sent 294 officers home,
without giving any reason. Later,
these officers went to court, where the
case is still pending.
According to Mughal, the management started the same exercise with
the employees and introduced the VSS
on December 31, 2010 and asked the
employees to avail it by January 14,
2011.
While the management said that it
was not mandatory to avail the
scheme, it also started forcing the employees to avail it or face dire consequences. The scheme was targeted as
the management issued letters to
4,500 lower-cadre staff by name, including drivers, security guards, bill
distributors, clerical staff and naib
qasids.
It is worth mentioning here that
4,500 retrenched employees also included 225 widows, disabled people
and minorities.

No more thesis for
PhD, thanks to HEC
KARACHI
AAMIR MAJeeD

Keeping in view the shortage
of researchers in private sector varsities, the Higher Education Commission (HEC)
has waived off the prerequisite of submission of thesis
for advancement into a PhD
programme, Pakistan Today
has learnt.
In a letter addressed to
the vice chancellors (VCs) of
all public sector varsities, the
HEC has directed the officials to remove the condition
of thesis submission for candidates, who wish to enrol in
PhD programmes.
As per the HEC letter,
the candidates with thesis
and non-thesis MS/MPhil
degrees should be allowed to
advance into PhD programmes.
The HEC has further directed the universities to
consider candidates having
MS/MPhil degrees without
completing their thesis work.
The public sector varsities have fixed criteria for admission
into
PhD
programmes with the completion of 30 credit hours, including an approved thesis,
by the varsity.
The letter, written by
HEC Executive Director Dr
Sohail H Naqvi, clarified to
the VC/Rector/President/Director of all public sector varsities that the university may
award an MS/MPhil or
equivalent degree upon satisfactory completion of 30
credit hours only. “Thesis
and non-thesis degree options are available and it is
not necessary to write a thesis to obtain the degree,” he
stated.
Naqvi further said that

each university may take the
decision
about
the
thesis/non-thesis option on
its own subject requirements. “Consequently any
person having completed an
MS degree is eligible to be
considered for admission
into PhD programme,” he
added.
Terming it a move to facilitate private sector varsities
without
adequate
number of PhD qualified faculty to teach students on how
to conduct research and
preparation of thesis, the
public sector varsities have
voiced concerns over the new
condition of HEC.
The varsities fear overburden of PhD candidates,
claiming that the non-thesis
MS/MPhil candidates would
also come forward for enrolment in PhD programmes.
When approached for
comments, university of
Karachi (Ku) Academic Affairs Pro-Vice Chancellor
said that varsity had not received any such intimation
from the HEC as yet.
“But how can a candidate
complete 30 credit hours
without the research thesis,”
she questioned.

She was of the view that
the Ku is an autonomous institution and it is not necessary to implement the HEC’s
each and every directive.
“The varsity has an approved
code of conduct with the
provincial assembly and it
would follow the rules,” she
added.
“[However], if the HEC
presses the Ku for implementing the orders, then the
matter would be forwarded
to the Board of Advanced
Studies and Research and if
the board approves the suggestion, the matter would be
taken to the Ku Academic
Council,” she said. “If the
council also approves the
suggestion, only then the
move would be implemented.
The Ku pro-vice chancellor said that under the
MS/MPhil programme, the
varsity has fixed one-year
course study after which the
candidates prepare a research thesis for the award of
degree.
She added that the universities do not allow admission in PhD programmes
until the research thesis is
submitted.

In the first of its kind procedure in Pakistan, doctors at the Aga Khan university
Hospital (AKuH) successfully implanted
a heart rhythm monitoring device – an
implantable cardioverter-defibrillator
(ICD) – in a 14-year-old girl from
Balochistan.
A press release issued by the AKu
Public Affairs Department on Tuesday
claimed that it was the first-ever experiment conducted by the AKuH experts to
install the device in a child.
Naila Bugti was born with Long QT
Syndrome (LQTS), a rare hereditary disorder of the heart’s electrical activity
which causes irregular heartbeats leading
to fainting, seizures or even cardiac arrests
Talking with Pakistan Today over the
telephone, Naila’s father Rafiq Bugti said
the AKuH management charged the Rs 1.1
million for installing the device and saving
his daughter’s life.
A small battery-powered pacemaker
with additional features, an ICD is placed
in patients at risk of sudden cardiac death
due to irregular heartbeats. It monitors and
identifies abnormal heart rhythms before
restoring the normal rhythm of the heart.

The last paragraph of the AKu statement, however, stated: “AKuH Karachi is
a not-for-profit, 577-bed teaching hospital
committed to providing the best possible
options for the diagnosis of disease and
the team management of patient care.”
A lawyer by profession, Rafiq is a native of Dera Bugti – hometown of slain
Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti. He was
forced to leave his town and migrate to
Quetta along with his family when paramilitary forces started an operation in the
area.
Naila’s three older sisters were not so
lucky as they were also born with the same
problem and died due to the disorder.
When Naila was diagnosed with
LQTS, Rafiq started running from post to
pillar to save his daughter’s life. Finally,
he somehow managed to reach the AKuH,
Karachi, as he had heard a lot about the
hospital.
To his surprise, the “not-for-profit”
organisation estimated an expenditure of
around Rs 1 million for Naila’s treatment.
“We have been displaced from our hometown since 2005 and it was huge an
amount for me. But I did not want to see
another funeral of my daughter, so I
started running to different places to
arrange the money,” Rafiq said.
Naila’s mother is a religious teacher in

Balochistan. She approached the provincial government for help and at last the
chief minister agreed to bear the expenditures of her daughter’s treatment.
Despite the assurance by the Balochistan government, the AKuH management
bluntly refused to start Naila’s treatment
before receiving the amount.
“We requested the provincial government to arrange the funds beforehand and
we are really grateful that the Balochistan
chief minister sent the complete amount
to the AKuH management,” she said.
Even after charging the huge amount,
the AKuH Public Affairs Department issued a press release for ‘not losing any opportunity’.
Despite several attempts, Pakistan
Today could not contact any official of the
AKuH Public Affairs Department, as its
head Dhunmai Cawasjee prefers not to
talk with the media persons herself and
deputes someone else from her department to face the journalists.
An AKuH officer, on condition of
anonymity, confirmed that the said
amount was charged but “it was the actual
price of the device in the market.”
The lead cardiologist of the case, Dr
Aamir Hameed Khan, told Pakistan Today
that the girl had recovered well after the
procedure and the ICD is functioning op-

timally.
“Since Naila was a high-risk patient,
we decided to implant the smallest ICD
possible,” he said. “Although ICD place-

ment in adults is not new in Pakistan, this
is the first time this device has been implanted in such a young patient,” he
added.

Naila Bugti

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PakistaN today

08 karachi

wednesday, 29 February, 2012

North Nazimabad losing its parks

P

arks take their name from the verb ‘to impark’, which means to surround with a
hedge, fence or wall. Parks and playgrounds are a necessity for the younger
generation as places to play and for elders
to relax in. Good landscape planning plays a vital
role in saving the environment. A good environment
like good health is easy to recognise but hard to define. Health is not valued till sickness comes. To conserve and improve our health, doctors must
understand the working of the body. Similarly, in
order to conserve and improve our environment,
planners must understand the geographical equivalents of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry. Doctors find it easier to investigate surface anatomy than
the interior. Planners find it easier to investigate the
physical environment than its working. But one cannot treat the inside of the body by treating the skin,
and one cannot improve the environment by dealing
only with the visible. Knowledge, ideas, beliefs and
skills are required to implement the diagnosis of
problems.
Great civilisations allocate open space to public
and nonproductive uses. Historically, this has included gardens, temple compounds, ceremonial
grounds, outdoor markets, social places, gymnasia
for exercise and recreation, burial grounds, hunting
and wildlife reserve. All this land is now classified by
planners as “open green spaces”, because the land is
accessible and un-built. There must be landscapes
where we can walk in safety, pick fruits, cycle, work,
sleep, swim, listen to the birds, bask in the sun, run
through the trees and laze besides cool waters
urbanization happens. Old settlements expand
and new settlements are founded. It can be a consequence of increased wealth, population growth or
preference for smaller households. People choose to
live in proximity to urban areas for social and economic reasons, but they complain about environmental conditions: the city is a concrete jungle, it is
ugly, it is unsafe, the air is polluted, there is insufficient contact with nature etc., and this becomes all
the more magnified with blighted green spaces.
Parks play a vital role in improving the urban environment. They protect both urban life and nature
simultaneously and the urbanite by virtue of being a
taxpayer is justified in his demand for open green
breathing spaces, and has all the rights to a quality
of life commensurate with his status as a law abiding
citizen.
Allotment of parks and playgrounds should
therefore, not only be made to fulfill an official formality but in order to be of utilitarian value should
also be well maintained, failing which they can have
serious negative repercussions.
There are a number of studies in different disciplines pertaining to different regions and aspects related to parks and playgrounds. Open-air recreation
and access to outdoor spaces is an important part of
many people’s daily lives, and research has shown
that outdoor activity provides scope for relaxation,
refreshment, escape from the everyday and chance
to form social relationships.
The benefits of viewing green-spaces goes beyond
aesthetic enjoyment to enhanced emotional wellbeing, reduced stress and in certain situations, improved health Recreational benefits far out weigh the
cost of access provision. The attributes that people
valued most were ‘peace and quiet’, ‘fresh air’ and the
‘landscape’. In the development of urban forestry,
parks are classified in terms of land-use as G&P (gardens and parks) in Chinese cities. Parks are one of the
major places of urban forestry. Trees are the most
conspicuous and long living natural features of cities.
They provide visible and tangible means, by which
citizens interact with nature, and they provide habitat
and food to sustain wildlife in the urban environment
as is the case with zoological gardens.
To facilitate such functions, landscape professionals employ trees to decorate the urban landscape, separate or define spaces, ameliorate
settlements’ microclimate, and abate air pollution.
Children’s playgrounds provide an enjoyable environment in which motor and social skills can be developed.
urban green spaces have important amenity values that include provision of leisure opportunities
and aesthetics enjoyment. However, most of these
values lack a market price. Consequently, they are
usually ignored or underestimated by urban planning policymakers, with the result that remnant
urban green spaces are being gradually encroached
upon by urban sprawl. As a result, quantitative information regarding the implicit, non-market price
benefits from urban green space is urgently required.
This study covered areas comprising the Karachi
Development Authority Scheme No 2 of Taimuria,
North Nazimabad, lay out plan area of Nazimabad
and North Karachi Township, parts of which combine together to form the present town of North Nazimabad.
North Nazimabad is a small densely populated
town in the northern part of Karachi. The town is
bordered by New Karachi Town to the north across
the Shahrah-e-Zahid Hussain, Gulberg Town to the
east across the Gujjar nullah, Liaquatabad Town to
the south and SITE Town to the west. The popula-

tion of North Nazimabad Town was estimated to be
about 500,000 in the 1998 census
Scheme No 2 of Taimuria was prepared by the
KDA during the tenure of Karachi Improvement
Trust and passed by the Government of Pakistan in
1953. This was planned as a beautiful and extensively
well planned open area with very low density population. The width of the road ranged from 50 feet to
320 feet. This scheme was planned in 21 blocks with
all types of facilities in each one of them.
A detailed survey of Parks and Playgrounds of
North Nazimabad Town and an in-depth study of
Satellite Imagery was the basis of this study for outdoor recreational facilities available in this area.
Population data was extracted from the District Census Report 1998 and layout area of parks and playgrounds measured through the layout map planned
in 1953 while current area measured with the help of
GIS forms the database. An extensive survey of parks
and playgrounds in the 10 uCs in the town was conducted several times on different days of the week at
varying daytime and evening hours. According to the
layout plan, the total area of parks and playgrounds
was 961,238.4 sq wards. While the present area
under this land use is 915,086.82 sq yards i.e. there
has been a decrease of 46,151.54 sq yards.
According to the KDA information based on the
layout map, the total number of parks in North Nazimabad is 67 and playgrounds only four.
However, “Ground-Truthing” has revealed that
there are only 56 parks left and 21 playgrounds. Now
after various types of encroachments and alterations,
17 parks have been converted into playgrounds while
six parks have been constructed on plots of land
marked for public buildings, three on land for primary schools and one each on a residential land and
a plot for a hospital. The number of playgrounds
constructed on primary school plots is three; the
number of parks converted into playgrounds is 13
and one playground has been constructed on land for
a goth (village).
Although there is considerable encroachment of
open green spaces on land meant for other purposes,
yet its area has declined. It is most distressing to
note that the shortfall of area from city’s average of
parks and playgrounds in North Nazimabad Town
Layout Status that was made in 1953 has now dramatically reduced due to encroachment of all types.
A comparison of the Layout and Present Status
of parks and playgrounds of North Nazimabad Town
shows that there is a great difference between what
was planned and the existing condition. According
to Layout Status, uCs Khando Goth, Farooq-e-Azam,
Hyderi and Sakhi Hasan were planned with a view
for maximum parks and playgrounds, but even then
there was a short fall of these facilities. The uCs
Shadman, Khando Goth and Hyderi have shown the
maximum short fall in area of open green spaces.
The area of parks and playgrounds has increased
in Mustafabad which has improved its rank from
ninth to first, Sakhi Hasan fourth to second and
Buffer Zone-I eighth to sixth. The greatest shortfall
is in Shadman, which has deteriorated form fifth to
tenth rank, while that of Khando Goth has deteriorated from first to fifth, Farooq-e-Azam from second
to third, Hyderi third to fourth and Buffer Zone-II
from sixth to eighth. Paposh Nagar has shown no
change in its rank between layout and present status
but there has been a decrease in the total area. The
deterioration in terms of coverage per 1,000 people
has occurred in Shadman, Khando Goth, Hyderi and
Buffer Zone II. Some improvement of acreage in relation to population pressure has occurred mostly in
Mustafabad, Sakhi Hassan and Buffer Zone I. No
change in this regard has been recorded for Pahar
Gunj and Hyderi, although in the aggregate decrease
has been recorded.
In terms of service provided to the uCs according to their size, the highest density of well maintained parks and playgrounds is in Farooq-e-Azam
followed by Hyderi and Paposh Nagar. The greatest
shortfall of this facility in terms of density of the
service to the area is in Pahar Gunj followed by
Buffer Zone I and Mustafabad.
In terms of well-maintained parks and playgrounds, Hyderi is followed by Farooq-e-Azam and
Paposh Nagar, while in terms of service provided to
the population according to city standard i.e. four
acres per 1,000 people.
Farooq-e-Azam leads followed by Hyderi and
Khando Goth; Mustafabad and Shadman have no
well-maintained parks and playgrounds.
The greatest shortfall of the facility to the population is in uCs Mustafabad and Shadman followed
by Pahar Ganj and Sakhi Hassan while Farooq-eAzam is providing the best recreational and environmental facility in terms of parks and playgrounds, as
the pressure of population on the open green spaces
is least as far as the town is concerned. On realising
the necessity of parks and playgrounds, the defunct
City District Government Karachi made additional
allotments of land for more parks and playgrounds,
but with the passage of time these allotments did not
materialise.
The density of population of North Nazimabad
for 1998 was 27,643.12 persons per sq. km. (0.03
persons per sq yards). The highest density of popu-

lation is found in Paposh Nagar, Pahar Gunj, Buffer
Zones-II and -I while the lowest is found in Khando
Goth, Farooq-e-Azam and Hyderi. A comparison of
densities of population with that of parks and playgrounds reveals that the best uCs as regards both
factors taken comparatively are Mustafabad, Sakhi
Hasan and Farooq-e-Azam. uCs showing worst comparative performance in this regard are Pahar Gunj,
Shadman, Khando Goth and Paposh Nagar. Buffer
Zone-I ranks fourth for both density of population
and density percentage of parks and playgrounds. A
comparison of density of parks and playgrounds between layout and present status shows that most remarkable improvement have taken place in uCs
Mustafabad, Sakhi Hasan and Buffer Zone-I,
which have improved their ranks from ninth to first,
fourth to second and sixth to fourth, respectively. On
the whole, according to the layout status, the density
of parks and playgrounds to area of uCs (in percentage) in North Nazimabad was 35.8 percent while
that for the present status is 33.7 percent i.e. a decrease of 2.1 percent.
Even the most primitive tribes and cultures have
felt the need for recreation. Now in the post-modern
era with cities being converted into mega polis like
Karachi, with its immense population pressure, excessive pressure on land use and resultant urban

sprawl, the need and demand for open green spaces
is becoming all the more acute.
Notwithstanding all these changes the jungle of
concrete blighted by its slums and gobbling up of
open green spaces is not only a cause of social ills,
anomalies and banes but it can became a cancer not
only for the local area or people but for the nation as
a whole and generations to come. While a well-balanced urban land use with sufficient open green
spaces would not only justify the rights of citizens as
tax payers but also prevent brewing up of socio-cultural and political conspiracies as empty minds are
devils’ workshops, while a physically, mentally, socially, culturally and economically vibrant youth can
be the source of sustainable well being of a nation.
The choice remains open whether we want to reap
the multiple benefits of well maintained Open
Green Spaces as assets with nominal maintenance costs or be entrapped in the vicious, multifanged dilemma with far reaching negative impacts.
Extract from the research paper “Open green spaces
- asset or liability - case study of North Nazimabad
Town – Karachi” by Farkhunda Burke1, Muhammad Azam, Syed Nawaz ul Huda and Salma
Hamza, published in the Karachi University Journal of Science

The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA)
authorities are reluctant to obey the orders of the Sindh
government that it should appoint a grade 18 officer as its
deputy director.
The orders were issued by the Sindh chief secretary
through the Services and General Administration Department in compliance with Supreme Court of Pakistan orders.
In a petition, former Port Qasim Authority officer Jabbar Memon, citing the matter of his posting, also raised the
matter of some 700 illegal appointments t the authority.
The Supreme Court ordered a complete inquiry into the
matter and the news item regarding the matter, published
in Pakistan Today under the heading: “700 illegal appointments in Port Qasim”, was taken as the part of the case’s
record.
In an order passed on February 8, the Supreme Court
granted three more weeks for examining the record and
submitting a comprehensive report on the alleged illegal
appointments.
On February 25, the Sindh chief secretary again sent an
urgent letter to the PDMA director general telling him to
obey the orders as the officer concerned, Memon, had filed
a contempt of court application in apex court.
Earlier, Sindh Advocate General Fatah Malak, in his
letter to chief secretary, made it clear that the PDMA authorities are reluctant to obey the orders of provincial government, so he, as the principal law officer of the province,
will not stand on their behalf.
The Supreme Court in its order had directed the
provincial government to appoint petitioner Jabbar
Memon to any suitable place. In pursuance of the orders,
the government posted him as the PDMA deputy director.
But the authority’s director general, Danish Saeed, did not
obey the orders and told the chief secretary in a letter that
a lady doctor should be appointed in Memon’s place.
The chief secretary rejected his argument and again ordered him to comply with the previous order, but the
PDMA director general refused to do so.
Talking to Pakistan Today, the PDMA director general
confirmed that he did not appoint Memon and suggested to
the Sindh government that a lady doctor be appointed as
per the instructions of the uNDP.

DPS wins 1st prize
at annual Flower
Show
KARACHI
PReSS ReLeASe

KARACHI

I

STAff RePoRT

T is unfortunate that many
workers of the country are
kept deprived of their wages
by industrialists and this unjust practice must stop, Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM)
chief Altaf Hussain said on Tuesday.
He was addressing a large gathering of workers at the Lal Qila
Ground in Azizabad on the 25th Annual Silver Jubilee Convention of the
MQM Labour Division.
“Workers should be paid their
wages before their sweat dries up as
instructed by Holy Prophet (peace be
upon him),” the MQM chief said.
Hussain also appealed to industrialists and mill owners to regularise
the services of daily wagers.
He said the country is facing eco-

nomic problems, corruption is rampant and wealth is concentrated in
the hands of a few families. “There is
mismanagement and unchecked corruption due to which profit-making
institutions are also collapsing one
after the other,” he pointed out.
Hussain said instead of firing
workers, corruption should be eliminated and people of strong moral
fibre and integrity should be appointed.
“Corrupt people must be removed from all national institutions
in order to save them,” he added.
Hussain demanded that the Pakistan Steel Mills, the Pakistan International Airlines, the Pakistan
Railways, the Pakistan Machine
Tools Factory and all other state institutions should be cleansed of corrupt officers.
He called for the implementation

of the wage board award and said
that journalists, reporters, technicians and others affiliated with newspapers and electronic media should
be given their salaries on time.
The MQM chief said his party is
in favour of labour unions in order to
enable workers to raise their voices
for their rights.
Mr Hussain said the law governing the Industrial Relations Organisation, under which labour unions
work, is about to lapse on March 12
this year and it is a source of concern
for labour organisations throughout
the country. “The federal government
must look into this matter immediately,” he demanded.
Referring to the act of restraining
women from exercising their right to
vote, Hussain declared that there is
no democracy without the participation of women.

He said the by-elections in Mardan and Mianwali, where women are
not allowed to cast votes, should be
declared as “null and void”.
Hussain appealed to the Election
Commission of Pakistan to bar candidates, who contrived to keep the
women away from the polling process
for a period of 10 years.
He also condemned the display of
weapons during the recent by-elections and incidents of aerial firing.
Speaking on the situation in
Balochistan, Hussain said it is necessary to find a solution to the problems of the province without further
delay.
Referring to the physical torture
on female polling staff by a candidate, Hussain stressed upon the Election Commission to look into the case
on merit and on the strength of evidence.

The Dawood Public School (DPS) has been awarded the first
prize in the category of Kitchen Garden, at the Annual
Flower Show, recently organised by the Horticultural Society of Pakistan.
The school displayed innovative ways of growing vegetables such as vertical gardening, organic gardening, and
planting in recycled material, at its stall. Exotic vegetables
and flower plant pots planted by students as part of the gardening classes were displayed and put up for sale.
On the occasion, Viqar Afza, the principal of the DPS,
said, “Such flower shows should be a regular feature of our
city so that the younger generation could learn about the importance of the plants and environment and enjoy the
beauty of nature.”

Sa session today
KARACHI
STAff RePoRT

The Sindh Assembly will meet on Wednesday (today), as the
provincial lawmakers are preparing for the Senate elections
- due on March 2.
“I am to state that the Acting Governor of Sindh in exercise of powers conferred upon him by Clause (a) of Article
109 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,
1973 has been pleased to summon the Provincial Assembly
of Sindh to meet on Wednesday, the 29th February, 2012 at
10 am in the Sindh Assembly Building,” said a notification
issued by Sindh Assembly Secretary Hadi Bux Buriro.

HE love of art can transcend all social, political and emotional boundaries. It is this belief that took a
propitious artist, Anjum Mohammadi, from Pakistan to India just to
display her art work
In the city of Karachi lives a petite woman –
Anjum Mohammadi. She teaches art and craft in
a kindergarten school, and practices her hobby of
painting during her free time. And she is in Hyderabad to showcase art all the way from Pakistan
in India. We spoke to her to know what made her
visit India, and she shared with us her reason, “I
have always loved coming to India – I have a few
family members here, and a many friends, so I
have many good reasons to visit this beautiful
country. This is my third time here, and I feel as
good as my first visit.”
unlike the last two visits, Anjum’s visit to
India this time is with her artworks. She excitedly
tells us, “I met the curator of Muse Art Gallery,
Sudheer Kaali online, and expressed my interest
in showcasing my artworks in his gallery. And before I knew, he was already helping me with the
formalities of coming to India. His efforts in
bringing me here have overwhelmed me – I cannot thank him enough for all the efforts.” Anjum’s
interests in art extend to water colours, acrylics,
collages and sculptures. She believes that learning is limited to as much you limit yourself.
She believes that contemporary Pakistan is
more tolerant of India. Life there is comparatively
not yet an easy game, but she has a positive take
on living there, “Politicians have not made it an
easy life for us. The government does not do justice, and no institution is in order, but we want
things to change like never before. And Pakistanis
have now realised the importance of India as a
neighbour. After the Bombay bomb blasts, we are
still allowed to travel to India but there is more
restriction. I myself have a lot of Hindu friends in
Pakistan and India, and I love the culture.”
Anjum feels the need to explore a collaboration of Pakistani art with India. And she is more
than willing to have Indian artists come to Pakistan to showcase their works. “I would love to help
with all the work required to bring some great Indian artists to Pakistan. My country would be
proud to be host to some great names in art from
India. I have seen some of the works of artists
here, and I think they are incredible. I would love
to do my bit to promote relations between the two
countries.” And we in
India could not
agree more that
good relations
between
the
countries is the
need of the hour.
Anjum Mohammadi’s paintings
will be on display
till March 6.

‘Feica: A Retrospective of Political
Cartoons and Paintings’ from March
1 to 18 at the Faraar gallery. Call
35389033 for more information.

‘My Journey as a Witness: An
Evening with Shahidul Alam’ at
The 2nd Floor. Call 35389033
for more information.

‘Japan Fest 2012’ on March 10 and
11 celebrates 60 years of Pak-Japan
friendship at the Arts Council. Call
32633105 for more information.

PDF E-Paper LHR_Layout 1 2/29/2012 8:50 PM Page 11

wednesday, 29 February, 2012

Editor’s mail 11

Democracy or dictatorship?
My intellectual curiosity about political science deepened after reading
“utopia” by Sir Thomas More. It
laments the compromises that are necessary when ideology confronts the
harsh realities of practicality.
To me, it is a eulogy of sorts, exploring the ideals that must be laid to rest
when indulging in politics. While a
utopian political system is impossible,
the book inspired me to explore the
multitude of social contracts that
philosophers had advocated over the
centuries. Inevitably, comparisons between Hobbes and Locke, with a background of Plato and Aristotle, consumed

me.

Was Hobbes's Leviathan right for
Pakistan, a country that had already
seen a string of military dictatorships?
Or must a government derive legitimacy
from the consent of the people, who otherwise have a right to overthrow it, as
Locke advocated? While I don’t support
dictatorship, I do come from a country
where the majority of the population is
rural and illiterate. Frustrated with the
lack of development, they often succumb – at the expense of a checks and
balances system – to the allure of swift
justice, rapid development and lack of
bureaucratic red tape that often forms

is Maya Khan innocent?
the rhetoric of dictatorships.
The themes in utopia were all too
real for the son of a Senator who had
seen a plethora of political systems.
They stimulated my intellectual curiosity and forced me to critically analyse
governments in Pakistan, which sway,
much like a pendulum, between military
dictatorship and democracy.
What is the measure of the success
of a government? If we choose to use
human development indicators as a
yardstick, then how do we argue against
a hypothetical dictatorship that brings
development to a country?
What about the portion of the popu-

lation that is opposed to certain aspects
of human development, like women empowerment? What if they are the majority? Democracy, in that case, would
result in an oppressive regime.
As such, I have been interested in
intellectual criticisms of democracy,
many of which stem from the precedent
set by Plato’s The Republic. While the
idea of benevolent philosopher-kings
may be feasible in theory, there remains
the threat of abuse of power. This everpresent threat ensures that I cannot, in
theory or practice, support dictatorship.
SAIHAAM AHMED KHAN
Lahore

water blues
Water is becoming dangerously
scarce, threatening to leave much of the
world dry in the next 20 years, without
enough water for a minimum of life (19
litres per person per day). According to a
World Bank study, Pakistan is sprinting
from a ‘water scarce’ country to becoming a ‘water stressed’ country and within
a decade a ‘water famine’ country. Pakistan's per capita availability of water has
declined from 5600 cubic metres in 1947
to 1200 cubic metres in 2005, and now it
is quickly approaching the threshold
level of 1000 cubic meters.
Our precious water is running out
very quickly from our hands. If nothing
is done, there would be approximately 18
percent shortfall in irrigation water supply and 1,457 MW in electricity supply,
crippling agriculture, industry, business
and daily life. Besides domestic mismanagement, our neighbour India is trying to
seek the control over waters allocated to
Pakistan through IWT-60, by building
more large dams (264 are under construction), and river diversions on rivers
allocated to Pakistan, so as to cater water
requirement for its burgeoning population.
Additionally, the dams would, thus,
provide New Delhi leverage to stop the
flow of the Chenab and Jhelum rivers at
will and strangulate Pakistan's agriculture. India says that the dam has been
built on “run-of-the-water” and as such
the amount of water to Pakistan would
not reduce. Nonetheless, the International Court of Arbitration (ICA) upheld
Pakistan’s stance on Kishanganga dam
building controversy on the Neelum
River, by granting Pakistan’s appeal to
halting India’s construction activities on
the western river allocated vide Article
III(4) of the Indus Water Treaty–1960.
The water issues can be addressed by
sharing the water as a “collective resource” for our future generations. The
two neighbouring countries using water
as a common resource should co-operate
and open up a range of possibilities
through optimum development of the
rivers by mutual agreement to the fullest
possible extent. India, being the upper riparian, should be more accommodating
and considerate to the lower riparian nation – Pakistan. Any major upstream alteration in a river system should be
negotiated, not imposed as in case of Indian water overtures on rivers Chenab
and Jhelum. As the Salal Dam issue was
resolved through talks in 1978, given the
will, the Krishanganga issue can also be
settled amicably in the light of the Indus
Water Treaty-1960.
ABDUL MAJEED GONDAL
Gajranwala

Pensioners’ rights
The federal government in pursuance
of Service Tribunal Judgement of 02-122010 which was up held by Supreme
Court vide its order of 01-04-2011 has allowed inclusion of the cost of living allowance at seven percent in pensionable
emoluments. In compliance with these
orders, the federal and Sindh government have allowed this benefit to their
pensioners retiring before revision of pay
scale in 2001.
It is regrettable that the government
of Punjab is sitting over the case and has
not yet extended this benefit to its pensioners. This is, to say the least, highly
unjust and unfair. The Punjab CM is requested to kindly extend the same concessions to the Punjab pensioners who
are finding it hard to face the current
cruel inflation.
MUHAMMAD NAWAZ QASMI
Multan

Amazingly, Maya Khan on Monday
attended Kamran Shahid’s programme
on Express News and tried to prove her
programme fake that was aired on
Samaa TV due to which she was fired
from her job.
Kamran Shahid in his best style
asked various questions concerning the
programme on Samaa TV in which Maya
visited public parks and interfered couples’ personal lives.
Maya Khan brought an evidence declaring herself innocent and said that all
allegations levelled against her are fictitious because the programme she did
was totally fake. She brought two young
boys with her and a DVD to prove that
the programme she made on Samaa TV
was fake. She said all couples in the programme were paid actors and they were
paid for the programme in which they
acted as couples.
Also she recorded a video of two girls
who were wearing veils at their homes
and said that those girls were just paid
actresses and they did not wear veils in
fact. However, can anybody believe that
the two boys and the girls were really
paid actors? If they really were paid actors, so who then resorted to court and
filed cases against Maya Khan for the
programme?
Buying someone is not a difficult task
in this era of inflation and it can probably be true that those two boys and girls
would have been paid a lot to cooperate
with Maya Khan in order to prove the
programme fake.
HAFIZ MUHAMMAD NOMAN
Karachi

the tabooed word

Blocked by loadshedding
Whenever Pakistan seems to be going on a path of success
and progress, there comes a problem or two that hinder its successful run to a point that the entire effort seems to be lost.
After a successful period of industrial growth under President
Pervez Musharraf, we hit the barrier on the road to progress
when the loadshedding and power shortage made life hell and

PeMRa’s right step
The field of journalism is full of responsibilities; balance, accuracy and
timeline are the basic elements of the
news. For the first time in history,
PEMRA made a right decision towards
regulation. Just as other departments are
doing their jobs, Pakistani media is also
doing the same.
Moreover, Pakistani media has lost
its character just because of unprofessional and unqualified journalists. Journalists don’t know about ethics of media.
They do harassment, they create violation and they are too away from social responsibility.
However, there are so many anchors
who don’t know about rules and laws of
media. I have seen many programmes
where guests smoke cigarette in live and
recorded shows. I usually see the awry in
news, I usually see anchors support political parties. I usually see anchors do fun
with dead bodies. I usually see anchors
tell lies.
However, I have not seen any role of
media in education, poverty, transport,
agriculture, development and in rural

halted industrial progress altogether. Whatever is the reason
behind this shortage, the main victim is the industry upon
which millions of families are reliant who have lost their source
of income and are forced to live in poverty.
SEHAR SAFDAR
Lahore

journalism. Moreover, media has totally
failed to raise the minority issues too.
Media in Pakistan has totally failed to
provide a true image of society, there is
not a symbol of Pakistani culture in it.
Anchors should follow ethics and the
government must implement laws on
media. Most people will stand by with
PEMRA if it brings an impartial bill regarding media ethics.
ISLAMUDDIN
Islamabad

Police gardi
Every law abiding citizen would be in
shock to see a news report in print and
electronic media about shooting by police
officials at a newly married lady doctor
belonging to a respectable family, seriously injuring her whereas two other
ladies and her brother-in-law accompanying her luckily escaped the bullets on
25 February.
As per the footages available from
hidden camera reported by the media,
the said family in their car was going
near Police Headquarters in the Garden
Area where the mobile police party was

While the political parties are gearing up for the next elections and predicting sweeping the election, none is
speaking about the most vital subject of
Kalabagh dam which has become a
tabooed word in Pakistan. Kalabagh dam
is the key to economic prosperity of the
country to solve the twin menace of
water and power scarcity in the shortest
time that bedevils the nation. No amount
of flowery promises made in the raucous
gatherings of parties could be made fruitful without earliest possible solution of
water and power shortage that afflicts
the industry and agriculture of our dear
country.
There is no other mantra so effective
as to post haste build the Kalabagh dam
and the slogan of mini dams and alternate sources to cheap hydel energy could
not deliver the goods. All the parties
share a collective criminal neglect in
keeping Kalabagh dam on the backburner while the national economy goes
down the drain.
DR MUHAMMAD YAQOOB BHATTI
Lahore

already waiting and indulged into altercation with them. Nonetheless, when the
lady doctor tried to sit in the car, they
shot at her injuring her seriously.
Though the accused ASI and two
other police officials who were arrested
later on while the fourth one absconded
after a police case was registered against
them, this act by law protectors has
raised some serious apprehensions in the
minds of peaceful and law abiding citizens about the role of police.
Nonetheless, every peaceful citizen is
generally afraid of police as they may
shoot at him any time without any provocations. It appears that this is still a police state despite tall claims being made
by our elected governments from to time.
I hereby request to the Chief Justice,
Supreme Court of Pakistan to take suo
motu action and also to the various organisations working for human rights to
take notice of the ever increasing police
powers and excessive use of force against
the peaceful and law abiding citizens in
order to dispel the image of prevailing
police state.
MOHAMMAD KHAN SIAL
Karachi

well deserved awards

mon citizens. Being accused of hiding
Osama is not at all understandable. The
all powerful dictator Gen Musharraf’s
now telling the nation that rogue men in
ISI may have helped Osama is a slap on
our face.
As the scenes are unfolding the matters are getting bad to worse as for as
security of Pakistan is concerned. If a
member of premier agency of Pakistan
can be purchased in 25 million dollars,
then anything can happen in this country. Living away from home, I am now
worried about our nuclear assets, as the
bounty can be increased to achieve the
goals.
If the news is correct then there is
need to appoint high power truth commission to dig into the failures of ISI in
finding black sheep working under its

nose because this may not be a case in
isolation. There is a strong lesson in the
whole game that blind trust in individuals is always harmful and keeping them
at one place for a prolonged period is
never safe.
The people of Pakistan and its security forces, including ISI, have rendered
enormous sacrifices against militancy
and terrorism. As the manifestation of
endgame in Afghanistan appears to be
coming to its end, it could be pressure
tactics by uS on Pakistan to toe their
line and bring in disrepute the army
and ISI in the eyes of the people of Pakistan. The death and destruction caused
in search of Osama has to be answered
by all involved in this game.
MUKHTAR AHMED
Bradford, UK

The Prime Minister has announced a
well deserved civilian award for Ms
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy for winning an
Oscar. He should also announce an
equally well deserved military award for
his son for the death of two innocents
caused by celebratory firing during the
by-polls. Let us not forget a World
Wrestling Federation honourary award
for Mrs Waheeda Shah. The nation must
honour its talented representatives.
RAJA M KAIQOBAD
Lahore

a new twist in the osama raid tale
Your esteemed paper has once again
brought into focus the infamous raid on
Osama bin Laden’s episode by quoting
fresh WikiLeaks as disclosed by Fred
Burton in his communication to Stratfor's vice president for intelligence in an
email to one of his regional director in
South Asia after the killing of Osama in
Abbottabad.
The reports say that a Pakistani intelligence officer came forward to collect 25 million dollars reward and to
stay in the uSA along with his family. In
another news it is also alleged that
seized cell phone links ISI to Osama’s
courier. Defence Secretary of uS Leon
Panetta is lobbying ISI to release 'Bin
Laden informant' for CIA and surprisingly Gen Musharraf is saying that
rogue men in ISI may have helped

Osama.
All over the world, secret agents operate in covertly manner and they are
also covered covertly to ensure they are
not playing the role of double agent. As
reported in the press, the ISI/army
knew of Osama’s hideout. Middle to
senior level officials of the ISI knew the
arrangements for Osama bin Laden and
his safe house in Abottabad.
After these disclosures it turns out
to be the most serious issue of national
security leaving behind Memogate scandal. If this is true, why were we fighting
a war on terror?
The uS was hunting Osama in
Afghanistan and killing innocent people
and Pakistan faced terrible a terrible
onslaught of suicide attacks causing
damage to lives and properties of com-

hat women voters were stopped from casting
votes at a number of polling stations in Mardan
NA-9 and Mianwali PS-44 constitutes a denial of
the equal rights to women provided in the
constitution. What makes it even more serious is that this
happened on account of a tacit understanding between
the contesting parties. If no notice is taken immediately
by those concerned, women would be denied their
constitutional right on a much larger scale during the
general elections scheduled within a year.
The PPP, ANP and PML(N) never tire of talking about
their avowed support for gender equality and the
empowerment of women. The incidents took place in KP
and Punjab, one under the PPP and ANP and the other
ruled by the PML(N). Not long before the by-elections
Fiza Gilani, the goodwill ambassador for women
empowerment, declared that the elections held at polling
stations where women were denied the exercise of their
right of vote would be declared null and void. One has yet
to hear from her or her patrons why the promise was not
fulfilled. It is argued that primitive thinking prevailing in
backward areas translated into customs which led to the
opposition to women casting votes. The argument would
convince few. Women belonging to the most backward
districts of Punjab and Sindh contest elections,
sometimes on open seats. In Balochistan and KP, they
have been in politics ever since the creation of the
country. The two major religious parties also have women
parliamentarians. In any case, politicians are elected to
lead the nation and not to follow the backward elements
in society.
The incidents have brought the credibility of the
Election Commission under doubt. On the face of it, the
EC did nothing to stop the malpractice. This despite
claims by the National Commission on Status of Women
of having sent reminders to the EC to devise institutional
structures and policies to bind parties which indulge in
such practices. unless the EC is able to exert its authority,
its ability to supervise the general elections would remain
doubtful. The issue concerns the SC also as Article 34 of
the Constitution ensures that “Steps shall be taken to
ensure full participation of women in all spheres of
national life.” There is a need to rectify the injustice that
has been done.

Disturbing disclosure
is the commission hearing this?

T

he revelation by a leaked email of a uS-based
intelligence firm that mid to senior level officials
in the ISI and military knew the arrangements of
Osama bin Laden and his safe-house in
Abbottabad is disturbing indeed. The email leaked by
WikiLeaks was written by Stratfor’s vice president Fred
Burton to one of his company’s regional director for
South Asia soon after the killing of the Al-Qaeda chief in
the Navy SEALS attack on May 2nd last year.
The released WikiLeak indicated that Burton was
unable to provide his regional directorate with the names
of the ISI and Pakistan military officials who had
knowledge of this arrangement for OBL. But he asserted
that uS Intelligence was aware of it. The government of
Pakistan has once again rebuffed the claim, reiterating its
earlier stance that it had no knowledge of the
whereabouts of the Al-Qaeda chief. Stratfor was
meanwhile subjected to scathing criticism by The Atlantic
magazine, saying the group's reputation among foreign
policy writers, analysts, and practitioners is poor: “They
are considered a punchline more often than a source of
valuable information or insight.”
However, the disturbing disclosure comes at a time
when a judicial commission is already conducting
investigation into the attacks carried out by the uS planes
in the country’s garrison town. Ten months have elapsed
since the operation was launched but so far the
commission has not been able to complete the probe and
furnish its findings to the government.
There is a need for expeditious completion of this
investigation because further delay in the process could
only strengthen the perception that the commissions set
up to probe affairs involving security officials are never
granted the independence they require. On the contrary,
those investigating allegations against civilians are often
seen going the extra mile to accomplish their tasks as
evident from the proceedings of the Memogate
commission.

t is not surprising that almost all Pakistanis want Pakistan to be the most
powerful and prosperous state in the
comity of nations. They want to lead a
life of peace and security and they also
want that no state should have right to question Pakistan’s domestic and external policies.
There is nothing wrong in preparing a
wish list or dreaming about an ideal situation. However, if a state and society live only
by a wish list and do not want to put their
dreams to a reality check, they are bound to
feel frustrated in case of failing to realise the
wish list.
The wish list cannot be fully realised because it is unrealistic in the present socio-political context. However, Pakistan can
overcome most of its problems and function
as a normal state that manages its domestic
and foreign policy issues in a reasonably effective manner. It can salvage its economy
and cope with the growing socio-economic
inequities.
This is possible only if its policy makers
and the politically active circles moderate
their wish list keeping in view their actual capacity and resources. They will have to
change their mindset from sermonising others on what should be done and stop waiting
for some “sincere leader” to appear for solving their problems.
Pakistan will have to seek strength from
within. It should adopt a low and quiet profile at the global level and work for peace and
stability on its border. This will give enough
time to Pakistani leaders to devote fully to internal problems. If Pakistan wants to compete militarily with India, liberate Kashmir
directly or through Islamic militant groups
and seek a compliant government in Kabul,
it will never be able to put its internal political
and economic house in order.
Pakistan should learn from China’s strategy of modernising its economy and
strengthening itself internally. It
By Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi has defused tension with all bordering states. It has put aside
(not abandoned) its territorial
dispute with India. The volume
of China’s trade with India is
bigger than its trade with Pakistan. It has also developed
trade relations with Taiwan and
improved relations with other
neighbours so that it is able to
fully devote its resources to
building its economy and
strengthening economic ties
with the rest of the world. It is
expected to continue with this
policy to keep its economic development rate in double digit
for the next decade or so. This
will enable China to project itself effectively at the global level
at a later stage.
Pakistan should postpone
its political agenda beyond its
border for a decade and devote
itself fully to internal issues and
problems. Four issues have to
be on the top of the priority list:
revival of the economy and international trade, control of religious
extremism
and
militancy, reduction of socio-

economic inequities and greater emphasis on
quality education and health facilities.
These objectives cannot be achieved
without normalising relations with neighbouring states and increasing trade and economic ties with them. India and Iran are two
countries that offer ample opportunities for
expanding trade and economic ties. With
Afghanistan, bilateral trade and transit-trade
facilities need to be streamlined.
The 21st century is the era of knowledge,
especially science and technology, greater
movement of people, goods and services
across territorial boundaries of the states and
the welfare of people. Pakistan should acquire these currencies of power in the coming
decades rather than nurturing Islamic militant groups that have trans-national ideological and political agendas.
This calls for toning down anti-America
hysteria in Pakistan. This has intensified because it is now linked to Pakistan’s domestic
power politics. As the Islamic parties and
militant groups have found themselves under
strong pressure from the uS policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan since September 2001,
they have turned against the uS. In the pre1990 period, Islamic groups and organisations were generally viewed as pro-uS and
worked in close harmony with the uS for
building up Afghan-Islamic resistance
against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in
the 1980s.
The military and its intelligence apparatus have also used their connections and influence to strengthen anti-American
sentiments to protect its interests in the domestic Pakistani context and to counteract
uS propaganda against the military and the
ISI.
The anti-uS discourse attributes Pakistan’s current internal security and economic problems to American policies in the
region, coupled with anti-Pakistan policies of
India and Israel. A large number of people,
especially the political far right and Islamistmilitant elements, think that Pakistan’s problems will be automatically resolved if the uS
quits the region and others stop conspiring
against Pakistan.
This line of argument implies that there
is nothing inherently wrong in Pakistan and

therefore they do not have to do anything to
improve Pakistan’s internal situation. It is
the “outsiders,” who have to change their
policies. This strategy of externalisation of
Pakistan’s domestic problems may manifest
a self-ascribed aura of righteousness but it
dissuades the leaders and politically active
people from rectifying their own deficiencies.
It is easy to talk about the national interests in broad and generalised terms like territorial security of the state, socio-economic
development, internal harmony and stability,
security of life, equality of opportunities and
minimal use of violence and coercion for societal conflict management. However, there
are operational problems of turning them
into concrete plans of action and institutional
arrangements and processes.
Pakistan needs to pursue a long term vision of a stable, secure and an economically
viable country by discarding sloganeering for
quick-fixes or seeking comfort in blaming
others for Pakistan’s problems. Set the priorities through a dialogue among the competing interests in a democratic framework on
what kind of Pakistan you need ten years
from today. This requires shedding aside certain regressive ideological perspectives or
seeking the future in the past. One can learn
lessons from the past but the current issues
have to be addressed in the present day context.
Do not expect other countries to pursue
policies to Pakistan’s satisfaction. The Pakistani civilian and military leaders will have
to adopt a realistic approach to put Pakistan’s
economic and political house in order based
on a down-to-earth reality check of the resources and capacity. Its domestic and foreign policy effort should give primacy in
terms of policy-measures to enhance its internal economic strength, political stability
and harmony. This can secure Pakistan
against external “conspiracies” and enable it
to play an active global role at a later stage.
At this stage, Pakistan should focus on its internal issues and work towards peace on its
border and evolve an active relationship with
its neighbours.

The writer is an independent political
and defence analyst.

Regional Press

on drone strikes
Daily Pashtun Post

B

uckling under American pressure in the wake of 9/11, the
then president/dictator of the country Pervez Musharraf
went ahead of himself to show his allegiance to the uS in
the war on terror and gave the uS many concessions and allowances which would be considered a breach of Pakistani sovereignty.
At the onset, the Americans were only focused on
Afghanistan and confined their military activities to that warravaged country. However, when a further free hand was allowed to the Americans by Musharraf, they started conducting
air raids through unmanned planes in Pakistani territories. The
dictator provided the uS with airbases which were then subsequently used to conduct drone attacks in the tribal belt of the
country in the name of action against militants.
People from the tribal region have stood against the growing
number of drone attacks as they result in a lot of civilian casualties and have led to the death of many innocent people who

had no connection with militancy or extremism. Recently, people from the tribal areas staged a protest in front of the parliament house in Islamabad condemning drone attacks.
They demanded of the government that it use all the resources at its disposal to thwart drone strikes against the innocent masses of the tribal areas. The demonstrators lamented
that while the attacks were unacceptable and condemnable on
the part of America, the lack of an adequate response from the
Pakistani government and security apparatus was equally unacceptable. The protesters said that these drone attacks would further worsen the security situation and may lead to a backlash
which the government could not deal with.
Not only are these drone strikes a breach of sovereignty,
their efficacy in eliminating terrorists also remains dubitable.
They have led to much collateral damage and no deaths of innocent people can be condoned. The protesters’ demand that
there be an immediate end to these strikes must be heard seriously.
– Translated from the original Pashto by Abdur Rauf Khattak

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wednesday, 29 February, 2012

False claims
on lofty and outright lol-worthy assertions

By Ali Aftab Saeed

I

mran claims he will set
everything right in no
more than 90 days after
coming to power. As far as a
sense of humour goes, Imran
can’t hold a candle to the elder
Sharif (not to mention Altaf
bhai and President Zardari)
but this is a funny one which
becomes outright hilarious if
this ‘everything’ includes our
economy. Since the economy
is so messed up, I am afraid
the end of corruption alone
won’t do the job even provided the Jinn at Imran’s disposal can make the corruption
disappear in the first place –
not referring to Sardar Azhar
Tariq Khan here.
In addition to good intentions (which are, as one would
expect, in copious supply) we
would need some creativity if
we are to get out of this mess.
Imran would have shown
much more realistic promise
had he protested against the
demolition of OBL’s compound. The money we have
spent to demolish it could be
much better used to renovate
the site into a ticketed tourist
spot. I am sure people from all
over the world would love to
visit it. Things like this could
do wonders for the business of
tour guides who are by now as
sick of Jahangir’s tomb as
their non-existent clients are
of the same. Guiding people
through the compound with
intimate details such as how
Osama used to watch TV
could generate a lot of much
needed revenue as well.
It is not possible for the
Taliban to stay out of the news
for long. Like Veena and Maya
Khan, they make sure that we
never hear the last of them. A

uS drone has come down in
Machikhel area of Mir Ali in
North Waziristan Agency on
Saturday night. Official
sources say that it had developed some technical fault,
hence the crash. The Taliban
seem to agree to the crash part
but true to their tradition they
claim that the ‘technical fault’
was caused by accurate shots
from their ‘heavy weapons’.
Taliban spokesmen are like
school children, marking
proxies for their friends during the roll call.
From hijacking planes to
downing drones the Taliban
claim responsibility for everything under the sun, which is
very inspiring considering
they live in caves for the most
part. A drone fell last year as
well and the Taliban rewarded
the person who claimed responsibility with a doublecabin ‘pickup’. Our army on
the other hand is in a singularly unfortunate position.
They have the technology to
hit the drones but for a combination of reasons can’t get
their name on to the hall of
fame. As for their quite real
exploits in Balochistan and
East Pakistan, those trophies
can’t be officially claimed either.
It is reported that after
Pasha’s allegedly proactive
role in Memogate and his related Middle Eastern sightseeing tour might result in the
PM not granting him another
extension as DG-ISI. PM Gilani had also famously
claimed that it was he who ‘insisted’ on the first extensions
of both Pasha and Kayani. I
believe PM Gilani got a bit
carried away when he claimed
this – don’t we all, occasionally, what with the tsunami of
words and emotions!
However, even if Pasha
doesn’t get an extension
(which would be disastrous
for uS-Pakistan ties according
to Ambassador Munter), he
will most probably be made
head of the Strategic Plans Division or something like that.
MacArthur had famously said,
“Old soldiers never die; they

just fade away.” Our generals
on the other hand never fade
away. They do die, but they
keep landing more and more
lucrative jobs before that.
Talking of lofty claims,
Imran’s claim regarding the
PTI becoming a truly national-level party by the next
elections is also dicey as there
is a pause to the tsunami of
lotas from other parties these
days. At any rate, not many
people are joining it the way
they were a few days ago. Rumour has it that Chaudhry
Shujaat went up to a representative of our patrons of sovereignty, and after mentioning
the services that he had rendered for them throughout his
illustrious political career
showed him a mobile text
message that was sent to a
PML(Q)’s member to join PTI.
The recipient of Shujaat’s distressed appeal has ensured
him that such blatantly direct
efforts will not be practiced
from now on.
Sharmeen Obaid’s Oscar
has not gone very well with a
few people. For instance, a lot
of my more patriotic friends
claim that she won it not because it was the best documentary film of the year but
because it highlighted an issue
which has defamed Pakistan
around the world (this appears to be the world’s
favourite pastime). Since
Google tells me it’s a very positive film as it shows ongoing
efforts to rehabilitate acidburnt girls, I have two questions for all those who believe
this. One, have you seen the
film? Second and most important, even if it isn’t about rehabilitation and is about the
issue of acid throwing itself,
isn’t that a shockingly common practice here which
needs to be eradicated? In
other words, in which continent did people believe that
Pakistan was Paradise-onearth, and that image of ours
has been shattered after this
film?
The writer is a member of
the band Beygairat Brigade.

comment 13

The Balochistan Resolution
The dark side of self-determination

F

or someone closely involved in promoting
Kashmiri self-determination in the united
Nations and other forums, one can imagine
the chuckles of satisfaction in the Indian Ministry
of External Affairs at the affixation of this term to
a Pakistani province. Finally, it would be said,
these Pakistanis are being paid back in the same
coin; the latter day champions of self-determination should now prepare to experience its destructive potential.
Indian satisfaction would be understandable
but entirely misplaced given the fundamentally
flawed premise on which the very concept of
Balochi self-determination rests. Taken to its logical conclusion, the indiscriminate application of
this principle could end up unravelling many modern states whose demographic composition does
not conform to the strict criterion of nationhood.
The postcolonial period saw the emergence of
numerous states which were home to diverse cultural and ethnic groups at varying stages of integration and development. If self-determination is
valid for Balochistan, it is equally relevant for the
Kurds in Iraq and Turkey, the Basques in Spain,
the tribes of north-eastern India, the Chechens in
Russia and many more. Seen from this prism, selfdetermination can become a deadly tool in the
hands of powerful vested interests to cause disintegration of lawfully constituted states as happened
recently in Sudan.
The concept of self-determination, operationally sanctified by President Woodrow Wilson,
was essentially meant to provide a political platform for subjugated countries and reBy Shaukat umer
gions to achieve freedom from their
colonial masters. This powerful principle inspired the colonised peoples of
Africa, Asia and the Middle East to liberate themselves from the clutches of
imperial domination and acquire independent statehood. Historically, self-determination was seen and accepted as a
rallying cry for freedom from colonial
rule. The axiom that peoples have a
right to choose their own destiny has to
be read in this context.
Over the years, some variants of
self-determination emerged following
the liberations of the forties and the
fifties. Kashmir and Palestine are the
obvious examples. In both cases, the
differences in their specific historical
antecedents notwithstanding, a distinct
group of people were kept under
forcible occupation against their express wishes and in defiance of international law as enunciated in the Charter
of the united Nations. In the case of the
Palestinians, a historically settled nation was driven from its homeland and
their land occupied by use of force. In
Kashmir, the people of the former
princely state were denied the right of
choice specifically granted to them by
the united Nations Security Council.

Kashmiri and Palestinian self-determination is
legally and historically valid, its non-fulfilment
being a stigma on the credentials of those who
pride themselves as the custodians of human rights
and superior civilisation norms
By equating Balochistan with Kashmir and
Palestine or the erstwhile colonies, Dana
Rohrabacher has tried to wilfully emasculate the
universally accepted definition of self-determination. He has sought to use this inherently anti-imperial tool to legitimise the disintegration of
lawfully constituted states. If left unchecked, this
insidious variant of a great concept could become
a vehicle for destabilisation and fragmentation to
the detriment of the established concepts of statehood.
How should Pakistan respond to this turn of
events? Naturally, the worrisome situation in the
province will have to be decisively addressed. To
be credible, the proposed All Parties Conference
would need to be inclusive and result-oriented. Reiteration of good intentions unaccompanied by
ground action would be self defeating. Robust federal intervention would need to be carefully modulated since in a conflict situation the line
separating the legitimate from the unlawful is often
blurred.
Press reports indicate that the Foreign Office
intends to raise this issue internationally. This
would be a gigantic blunder and, if anything, would
help place the issue of Balochi self-determination
on the global agenda. We should take a lesson
from Indian mishandling of Kashmir in the multilateral arena. Had India shown the wisdom of
avoiding knee jerk reaction whenever the issue was
raised Kashmir might not have resonated for so
long in conference halls around the world. By its
overreaction, India played right into our hands.
Pakistan must avoid this path of folly. The
temptation to pursue a muscular approach should
not override the subtler demands of statecraft. We
have made our views known to the uS administration which has already distanced itself from the
Congressman’s initiative. These demarches should
be followed up quietly but focus must remain on
the urgency of alleviating Balochi grievances.
Diplomatic overkill must be resisted lest it helps
transform a purely domestic matter into an international issue.
Despite the spurious nature of Dana
Rohrabacher’s resolution, the fact remains that it
has been tabled in the legislative chamber of a
mighty superpower which has crucial strategic interests in this region. The resolution adds another
layer to Washington’s already considerable leverage which can be appropriately orchestrated to advance these interests. How earnestly Pakistan
chooses to resolve Balochi complaints and the nature of its contribution to the Afghan reconciliation
process would most likely determine the resolution’s future trajectory in the uS Congress.
The writer is Pakistan’s former Ambassador
to the United Nations and European Union. He
can be contacted at shaukatumer@hotmail.com

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14

wednesday, 29 February, 2012

Veena Malik, Bobby Darling

in liMelight
MILAn: Models display
creations as part of
Gianfranco ferre fall-winter
2012-2013 show during the
Women's fashion week. aFp

kiss and tell
A
NEWS DESK

T a surprise birthday party
thrown for her in Mumbai,
actor Veena Malik managed to
surprise others as she locked
lips with actor Bobby Darling.
Veena was photographed at the party
being kissed
by Bobby,
her
co-star
in her
film,

‘Daal Mein Kucch Kaala Hai’. “Veena and
I share a very good relationship. I love
her. We greet each other like this every
time. Why do people have a problem with
our way of greeting each other?” says
Bobby. Veena, too, is quite okay with the
entire episode. “It was very cute. Bobby
just came and kissed me. I think it was a
beautiful gesture and I’m alright with it. It
was just a tap on the lips, not really a
French kiss. I’m ok with Bobby or my
girlfriends doing it,” she says. The actor
adds that she was very touched by the
surprise birthday party as she was
expecting to spend the evening alone. “I
had just come back from Dubai and my
manager insisted that I go for dinner on
my birthday. When I saw all my friends
there with gifts and flowers, I felt
blessed,” she says. Veena’s ‘good friend’
Ashmit Patel, however, was not present
at the party. “Ashmit was not around. We
are not that close anymore. We don’t
meet often. I have signed a film with him
so maybe we will meet when we start
shooting,” says Veena. Veena, who is all set
to shortlist candidates for her ‘Swayamvar’,
also addressed recent rumours that she
charges only Rs 1 lakh to do a film, she
says, “No way, I’d charge 1 lakh to give
people a glimpse of me, not a film.”

angelina’s leg takes to Twitter
LOS ANGELES
AGenCIeS

While ‘The Artist’ bagged five Oscars at the 84th annual Academy Awards, it was Angelina Jolie’s exposed right leg that generated the most buzz on the
night. The 36-year-old actor rocked the Oscars in a
black velvet Atelier Versace dress, which featured an
enormous slit on the right-hand side. Jolie raised
eyebrows, and probably temperatures, by exposing
a thigh in the gown while presenting one of the
awards at the Oscars show. Within less than an hour
someone had created @AngiesRightLeg which predictably featured a cropped picture of Jolie’s leg as
its avatar and tweeted comments like: “I am Angelina Jolie's right leg”, “Still here. Great view, but
thank God for the slit in this dress.” By Monday
morning the Twitter feed had more than 15,500 followers. “Look at me!” said the leg, 45 minutes after
Jolie shimmied onto the stage to present the best
adapted screenplay Oscar, flirting shamelessly with
the camera by holding her leg just so. “I'm over
here!” “I'm a leg, get a load of me!” and “You have to
admit, I'm one hell of a leg,” it added. The thigh-baring pose was immediately mimicked by ‘The Descendants’ screenwriters Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon
and Jim Rash after they accepted the screenplay
award from Jolie. The Academy wrote on its Twitter
account that Jolie’s appearance “got a LOT of people
talking - 3399 tweets per minute about her in fact.”

MILAn: A model displays a creation as part of
Roberto Cavalli fall-winter 2012-2013 show
during the Women's fashion week. aFp
Tara Uzra Dawood
and Sumeha Khalid

Qudsia with Asif Iqbal

revived
MUMBAI: Katrina Kaif may soon
have to take time out of her choc-abloc calendar to play hema Malini's
character in the remake of gP
Sippy's 1973 blockbuster ‘Seeta aur
geeta’. akshay Kumar and abhay
Deol who were to play the roles
essayed by Dharmendra and Sanjeev
Kumar in the original will have to
follow suit. it was learnt that the
remake that was stuck due to the
Sippy family feud will soon go on
floors now that the fight has been
resolved. when Katrina was asked
about the ‘Seeta aur geeta’ remake
a few days before she left for
london to shoot yash Chopra’s next,
she said, “i don't know what is
happening on that film.” “Bohra can
definitely go ahead with that film. i
have told him that we Sippys are
now on the same page. also, i am
meeting Bohra next week,” gP
Sippy's son Suresh's nephew Sascha
said. the end of the Sippy family
feud also paves the way for the
conversion of ‘Sholay’ into 3D. the
project had been put off by the legal
hassles of the Sippy family. AGenCIeS

Twinkle twinkle

little star for

Shahid Kapoor

Guests at the event

MUMBAI: Some pray. Some build
temples. Some even hurl
themselves on the unsuspecting
celebrity. But Shahid Kapoor's fans
buy a star for their star. As a
birthday present for the actor who
turned 31 on february 25, his fans
have bought him a gift that literally
glows. Mumbai Mirror has learnt
that a handful of people, who
admire Shahid, have bought what
most heroines have been yearning
for over the years. A friend of the
actor said, “Shahid celebrated his
birthday in Goa with a bunch of
friends. When he returned to his
residence, he was surprised to see
this unique gift waiting for him. A
bunch of fans had bought a star for
him and named it Shahid. The
official letter from the company
and a certificate claiming that the
star is now named Shahid was
delivered.” Prior to this, a lunar
crater in the moon's 'sea of
tranquility' was christened after
Shah Rukh Khan in 2010. The star
now named after Shahid is located
in the orion constellation. “The star
was booked by his fans through the
official website starfoundation.net.
Shahid was overwhelmed by this
gesture. He wears a bracelet that
his fans had earlier given him,”
added the friend. AGenCIeS

‘heroine’:
Resonances of

Manisha Koirala’s life?
MUMBAI: Madhur Bhandarkar’s upcoming
‘heroine’ has made a lot of headlines
right since its inception. First the issue of
aishwarya Rai Bachchan quitting the film
left Bhandarkar in an abyss, and then the
incident of the film’s dialogues getting
stolen. Rumour has it that Bhandarkar’s
brainchild is based on the life of Manisha
Koirala. her stardom in the 90s had left
many people surprised, and many more
envious. the heights of fame that she’d
risen to came crashing down with her
alcohol abuse and turbulent relationships.
her tumultuous relationships had caused
a stir in the hindi film industry, and had
set many tongues wagging. and now, she
is back in news again. the film ‘heroine’,
supposedly, sketches the ups and downs
of the actress’ personal and professional
life. Madhur Bhandarkar, however, has
denied the speculations, saying that his
film is not based on anyone in particular.
‘heroine’, which sees Kareena Kapoor in
the lead role, was also thought to have
been inspired by the life of Marilyn
Monroe, among others. AGenCIeS

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15
Rowan Atkinson declared

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

launches anti-acid campaign
KARACHI
AfP

Pakistan's first Oscar winner
launched a campaign, hoping
that her documentary about
survivors of acid attacks can
help eliminate a crime that disfigures hundreds of women
each year. ‘Saving Face’ by
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won
the short documentary category
at the Academy Awards on Sunday. The film follows survivors
in their fight to bring their attackers to justice and focuses on
the work of British Pakistani
plastic surgeon M Jawad, who
helped restore their faces and

lives. The team behind the documentary are using their website to launch a campaign
designed to raise awareness
about acid attacks, which disfigure around 200 women a year
in Pakistan, and to strengthen
legislation against the violence.
“The film must be more than an
expose of horrendous crimes, it
must be a recipe for addressing
the problem and a hope for the
future,” co-director Daniel
Junge says on www.savingfacefilm.com.
Obaid-Chinoy's
mother, Saba, told AFP that the
campaign was launched formally after her daughter won
the Oscar, which had “provided
her with a unique opportunity
and strength to strive for her
goal more effectively”. “‘Saving
Face’ is uniquely positioned to
advance awareness, education
and prevention efforts,” the
website says. The chairwoman
of Acid Survivors Pakistan,
which is a partner in the campaign, told AFP that the fight to
eliminate the crime had only
just started and that the outreach programme was designed
to generate “systemic change”.

Whitney houston’s distraught mum haunted

by her ghost
LOS ANGELES
AGenCIeS

N a letter handed to her
friends and family,
Whitney Houston’s distraught mother has said
that she is being
haunted by the ghost of her
daughter. Grieving Cissy Houston says her doorbell has been
ringing mysteriously since the
day Whitney died, but 78-yearold insists that she is not scared
and is taking comfort from the
spirit. Meanwhile close friends
of the family said Cissy is in
danger of becoming “obsessed”

i

with feelings that the songbird
is still with her. They warned it
is a sign the frail grandmotherof-six is suffering from “uncontrollable grief and shock” that
could spiral into a mental
breakdown. Cissy could not
bring herself to speak at her
daughter’s funeral held eight
days ago. Instead, she handed
mourners a letter, which told
how she believes the singer’s
spirit called at her door the day
her body was found. Cissy also
revealed in the heart-rending
message how God tried to warn
her that her daughter was
going to die. Houston, 48, was
found dead in her bath at the
Beverly Hilton hotel in LA on
the eve of the Grammys after a
suspected drugs and booze
binge. Cissy added in her note
that she felt spirits were trying
to tell her how the singer was
suffering in the months before
her death. A pal of Cissy said,
“She feels Whitney is with her
since this doorbell-ringing
episode. She constantly talks to
her as if she is still a real presence with real power.”

Oscars to go under hammer despite protest
LOS ANGELES
AfP

first navigation system
launched with Android app
LAHORE
PR

Pakistan’s first 3D map rendering, guided
by Global Positioning System was launched
recently in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad
which features the latest and most detailed
maps of Pakistan with a vast coverage of
more than 100 cities and highways all over
the country. The glittering event was
organised by Xaviyeh while its PR was
handled by IDEAS Events PR. With the
launch of Trakker NAV, a new era for road
navigation technology has started in the
country as it is available for in-car devices,
Portable Navigation Devices and
downloadable application for iPhones and
Android based phone services. Trakker Nav
is available for iPhone and iPad at App
Store and for Android devices at Android
Market by the name of ‘Sygic-Pakistan’ and
has been one of the top selling apps in
Pakistan.

MUMBAI: With his most ambitious project
slated for release soon and news of his
impending wedding with ladylove
Kareena Kapoor doing the rounds, the
newly anointed nawab of Pataudi, Saif Ali
Khan couldn’t have expected a
nightmarish episode to come his way. The
actor had earlier rebuffed rumours about
his midnight brawl with a businessman
as a publicity stunt and now maintains
the same stance. Saif said recently that
he is trying to sort out the issue with
Iqbal Sharma and his family. However, he
admitted that roughing up an elderly
person in a fit of rage is something he
couldn’t have ever dreamt of. “We are in
talks and I hope to sort it out among
ourselves more constructively,” said Saif.
on being asked if the whole episode was
blown out of proportion considering his
celebrity status, Saif said, “I don’t want
to sound like a victim.” The nawab also
admits that the brawl could have been
avoided. “But celebrity or not, I do feel
that it should have been handled
differently. All I know is that, just the idea
of hitting a senior person is something I
wouldn’t dream of in a million years. It’s
not a publicity stunt. neither me nor my
film need such uncalled for attention.”
Well, as long as you realise turning
violent was wrong, we have little to
complain. And as they say all’s well that
ends well…hope this unpleasant
happening, too, settles amicably. AGenCIeS

A uS auction house is selling a collection of Oscar statuettes valued at over $1
million two days after the Academy
Awards, despite an official protest, organisers said. The collection of 15 of the
gold-plated prizes includes one for the
Best Screenplay Academy Award for
iconic movie ‘Citizen Kane,’ given to
Herman Mankiewicz in 1941. The 1933
Best Picture Oscar for ‘Cavalcade,’ a
1939 cinematography Oscar for
‘Wuthering Heights’ and Charles
Coburn's 1943 best supporting actor
Oscar for ‘The More the Merrier’ will
also go under the hammer. “This is the
most significant collection of Oscars to
ever be auctioned. It contains Academy
Awards from epic films such as ‘Citizen
Kane’ and ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’,”
said Los Angeles auction house owner
Nate Sanders. “Furthermore, 'Cavalcade' is the earliest Best Picture Oscar to
ever be offered in an auction,” he added.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences, which organises the Oscars, condemned the sale. “The Academy, its members and the many film
artists and craftspeople who've won

Hitting a senior
person is something
I wouldn’t dream of:

Saif Ali Khan

Academy Awards believe strongly that
Oscars should be won, not purchased,”
said an Academy statement. “unfortunately, because our winners’ agreement
wasn't instituted until 1950, we don't
have any legal means of stopping the
commoditisation of these particular
statuettes,” it added.

MUMBAI: Dating girls and Salman
Khan are believed to be synonymous
with each other. the actor has been
associated with a long list of beauties
in the past, and very recently has
fuelled rumours of getting back with
his ex-flame Katrina Kaif. however, the
actor feels that his dating days have
come to an end now. in an in-depth
talk with the media during the launch
of a new show, Sallu stunned his
audience by saying that he somehow
no longer remembers the art of dating
girls now. at the age of 46, even
though the general observation might
seem contradictory, Salman has said
that he is no longer adept at dating
women. the actor said to a leading
daily that he was once very lucky at
dating girls, but that is a thing of the
past. Salman’s ‘most eligible bachelor
of Bollywood’ tag is something that
the actor is not too ready to shed by
entering into holy matrimony, it seems.
what with three epic break-ups in his
past, that with actresses Somy ali,
aishwarya Rai and Katrina Kaif, looks
like Salman is tired of dating girls now.
while ex Katrina has decided to go
ahead with an arranged marriage later
in life, Salman too seems to be in the
same court. love or no love, you will
still rule the roost when it comes to
dating girls, Salman. and we sincerely
wish that you retain that status,
forever and beyond. AGenCIeS

dead on Twitter
LONDON
AGenCIeS

An Internet
hoax about the
death of British
actor Rowan
Atkinson has
became the top
trending topic
worldwide on
Twitter. The
57-year-old
comedian is the latest celebrity to be
the victim of a hoax about their death.
Rumours about the apparent demise of
the ‘Mr Bean’ star spread around the
globe within hours of a “joke” tweet
from a so called “internet troll” on the
social networking site. The hoax even
briefly fooled Internet encyclopaedia
Wikipedia, which displayed Atkinson’s
date of death as 26 February 2012 on
his entry page. Tens of thousands of
people latched onto the #RIP Rowan
Atkinson hash-tag to express their
condolences. The top world wide
trending subject was apparently
sparked by a single post from a twitter
user based in the Philippines, Michael
Robert Meras. Just two hours later,
Meras posted another comment saying
it was a “joke.” The Johnny English
star is not the first global star to be the
subject of a death hoax. Owen Wilson,
Charlie Sheen, Adam Sandler and
Eddie Murphy are among a growing
list of stars to have been killed off in
cyberspace. They were all said to have
been tragically killed in snowboarding
accidents, according to rumours,
which have circulated around the
Internet in recent years. Morgan
Freeman and former popstar Aaron
Carter have also been the subject of
online death rumours.

nida Azwer announces
Spring Summer Pretwear Collection
NEWS DESK
Nida Azwer exhibited her Spring
Summer Pretwear Collection 2012 at
an exhibition at her design studio in
Karachi. It was a preview to this
season’s trends by the design house
which includes A-line shirts,
angrakhas, kurtas, peshwas and
straight kurtas. This collection also
includes signature and limited edition
Nida Azwer pieces based in fine
quality Indian fabric handpicked by
the designer. Speaking about the
collection Nida said: “My collection is
in resonance with the upcoming
season and this is reflected through
fresh and vibrant colours ranging from
yellow, pink, blue, green, orange and
white. The collection is perfect for
evening affairs, lunch with family and
friends and for casual day wear.”

the end
of Salman’s love life!

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16 Foreign News

wednesday, 29 February, 2012

Deadly school shooting shocks small Ohio town
CHARDON

S

AfP

HOCKED residents of this small
Ohio town on Tuesday wondered how a local teenager could
have opened fire in a high school
cafeteria, killing a fellow student
in America’s latest campus shooting.
As the media spotlight shone on the
small town of Chardon, near Cleveland, the
questions raised by previous tragedies
loomed once more — about the gunman’s
demons, the missed warning signs and the
country’s lax gun laws. The shooter
wounded four other students, leaving two
hospitalized in critical condition, before
fleeing the scene and turning himself into
police as panicked parents raced to the
school to see if their children were safe.
Fellow students described the gunman
as an “outcast” who had suffered bullying
and said he had posted warnings on Twit-

ter and left disturbing messages on Facebook. Children were preparing for class at
Chardon High when the teenager opened
fire with a handgun shortly after 7:30 am
(1230 GMT), apparently targeting one
group in particular.
Panicked students, taken by surprise as
they were eating breakfast and waiting for
first period to start, screamed and sprinted
out of the cafeteria, fearing for their lives.
Nate Mueller, a junior at the school, described the first few seconds of mayhem, as
he saw one of his friends bend over a table
bleeding and another fall to the ground in
a pool of blood before a shot grazed his own
ear. “It was terror. Everything had just gone
tunnel vision, like, I need to get out of
here,” Mueller told ABC News. “You see
glances of your friends lying all over the
place. There’s blood, there’s people screaming, everybody’s just running in different
directions and you’re just trying to get out.”
A teacher eventually chased the shooter

from the school, as the town of 5,000 residents was placed on lockdown and the victims were rushed to hospital, some by
helicopter. The suspect was apprehended
by police a short while later after turning
himself in to bystanders, but it soon
emerged that one victim, 16-year-old
Daniel Parmertor, had died in hospital.
Mueller told CNN he had been friends
with Parmertor, describing him as the
“nicest most polite kid on earth.” Mueller
said he knew the shooter as well, but was
at a loss for a possible motive. The gunman’s face was “expressionless,” he told
CNN. “I can’t even explain it. It looked like
he was on a mission.” Chardon police Chief
Tim McKenna confirmed that police had
arrested a “juvenile” suspect, but said no
name would be released because he has
not yet been charged.
The FBI was helping the sheriff’s department search the suspect’s home. Earlier, masked SWAT teams had ringed

Chardon High, conducting security sweeps
so that the building could be evacuated and
the pupils transported to a nearby elementary school to be released to parents. “We
are shocked by this senseless tragedy,” said
a statement from the Parmertor family.
“Danny was a bright young boy who had a
bright future ahead of him. The family is
torn by this loss.” Word of the shooting
sent fearful parents rushing to the school,
where they went through a protracted
process of being reunited with their children. “We feel so disheartened — it’s going
to take me a moment to get back together
here. We certainly hope those families
know that they’re in our thoughts and our
prayers,” said Chardon schools superintendent Joe Bergant.
Chardon resident Karen Porter said
the close-knit community was shocked
over the shooting. “This is hometown uSA
in the best sense of the word. It’s not what
you’d expect at all. “This is so sad on so

many levels,” she told AFP. “I feel sorry for
the kids that were injured, that’s such a
tragedy. The kids that witnessed the shooting will be forever changed.” A candlelight
vigil service was scheduled for Tuesday
night at a local church and grief counselors
were on call to help the small-town Ohio
community deal with the traumatic event.
Announcing that classes on Tuesday
would be canceled, Bergant added: “I hope
every parent, if you haven’t hugged or
kissed your kid in the past few days, takes
that time.” The last major school shooting
incident in Ohio was in Cleveland in 2007
when a 14-year-old student killed himself
after wounding two teachers and two fellow students. The deadliest school shooting in the united States was the 2007
massacre at Virginia Tech university that
left 33 people dead. The worst high school
shooting was in 1999 at Columbine High
School in Colorado, where two students
killed 12 fellow students and a teacher.

London Occupy
camp cleared from
outside St Paul’s
LONDON
AfP

LonDon: A woman prays as riot police remove protesters from the occupy encampment on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral on Tuesday. REUTERS

UK photographer escapes to Lebanon as Homs pounded
DAMASCuS

UN rights chief Navi Pillay urges
‘humanitarian ceasefire’ in Syria

AfP

Wounded British photographer Paul
Conroy has been smuggled into
Lebanon from the Syrian rebel city of
Homs, which on Tuesday was shelled by
regime forces for a 25th day, his father
and activists said.
News of Conroy’s dramatic escape
came as uN rights chief Navi Pillay called
in Geneva for an immediate ceasefire to
allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to
violence-torn regions of Syria. “We’ve just
had word from Beirut,” Conroy’s father Les
told British media. The freelance photographer was working for Britain’s Sunday
Times newspaper when a makeshift media
centre in Homs was shelled on February 22
by Syrian forces, killing veteran uS reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik and wounding Conroy
and French reporter Edith Bouvier. France
said it could not confirm reports that Bouvier had been evacuated from Syria but
that it remained mobilised to do everything
possible to secure her rescue.
“We do not at this stage have elements that permit us to confirm what
some media have reported concerning

Edith Bouvier,” French foreign ministry
spokesman Bernard Valero said. “We
are more mobilised than ever to do
everything possible to allow for the
evacuation of the wounded, of all foreign journalists and our wounded compatriot, from Homs,” he added.
Conroy, 47, issued a video appeal for
help last week, saying he was injured and
being looked after by rebels of the Free Syrian
Army. A Lebanese activist said Conroy had
been smuggled during the night from Homs
to Lebanon through an illegal crossing. “Conroy and people accompanying him entered
the Wadi Khaled region through the Hnay-

GeneVa: uN rights chief Navi Pillay
on Tuesday called for an immediate
ceasefire to allow the delivery of
humanitarian aid to crisis-hit Syria
during a special meeting of government
ministers in Geneva. “There must be an
immediate humanitarian ceasefire to
end the fighting and bombardments,”
the united Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights said at the opening of
an urgently-arranged debate on Syria at
a Human Rights Council meeting. Pillay
said since mid-February she had
received reports of a rapidly
deteriorating humanitarian situation
and serious rights abuses, including a
massive campaign of arrests by military
and security forces. Residents of cities
such as Homs and Hama have been

subjected to blockades preventing food,
water and medical supply access. “The
Syrian army has reportedly used tanks,
mortars, rockets and artillery to cordon
off cities, and shelled densely populated
neighbourhoods in what appears to be
an indiscriminate attack on civilian
areas,” said Pillay. “The crisis has
exacerbated pre-existing high levels of
poverty and unemployment. The
humanitarian situation is dire.” Pillay
said Syrian government figures provided
to her office on February 15 put the
number of civilians, soldiers and police
officers killed between March 15, 2011
and January 18 this year at 3,838.
“According to information available to
my office, the actual numbers may far
exceed these figures,” said Pillay. AFP

der border village after midnight on motorbikes,” said the activist in northern Lebanon
who helps smuggle wounded people out of

Syria. The northern region of Wadi Khaled
borders Syria and is close to the province of
Homs, of which Homs city is the capital.

Police tore down the anti-capitalist camp
outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London early
Tuesday, arresting 20 people as they brought
a swift end to the last major Occupy protest
around the world. Dozens of police officers
and bailiffs moved in shortly after midnight
Monday and within hours the encampment,
which sprung up in October in support of
similar actions in the united States and
Spain, was cleared. But the protesters vowed
to continue, saying: “This is only the
beginning.” Fifty to 60 activists were present
when the authorities arrived to enforce a
High Court-ordered eviction, and a lone piper
heralded the camp’s demise. The City of
London Corporation had urged activists to
dismantle their tents peacefully but some
people hastily erected barriers of wooden
pallets and let off smoke bombs in an attempt
to stall the clearance operation. A handful of
protesters were reported to have handcuffed
themselves to a makeshift wooden structure
on the edge of the camp, but the rest of the
site was reduced to a pile of old mattresses
and tents within two hours. Stuart Fraser, a
spokesman for the Corporation, the local
authority, said in a statement: “It is
regrettable that it had to come to the need for
removal but the High Court judgment speaks
for itself. “The site has now been cleared and
the area is undergoing a deep clean. “Some
areas of the site may be cordoned off during
this cleaning but we will complete the work as
quickly as possible, in order to return the site
to its regular use.” City of London Police said
the operation had been “largely peaceful”,
adding: “A small minority of protestors
obstructed the work of bailiffs. Police made
20 arrests as of 4.30 am (0430 GMT).” The
Occupy the London Stock Exchange protest
began outside St Paul’s Cathedral, in the
heart of the capital’s financial district, on
October 15 as part of a global movement
against the excesses of capitalism. But there
had been an air of resignation within the
camp since the Court of Appeal on
Wednesday dismissed the protesters’
application for permission to challenge last
month’s High Court ruling that they must
disband. The London clearance followed the
forcible eviction of protesters from Zuccotti
Park in New York two months ago, and a
dawn raid against a camp at McPherson
Square in Washington, DC, in early February.
Occupy London vowed the action would not
stop their movement. “This morning, the City
of London Corporation and St Paul’s
Cathedral have dismantled a camp and
displaced a small community, but they will
not derail a movement,” the group said in a
statement. They paid tribute to “a
makeshift, loosely cooperative,
occasionally quarrelling and fiercely
idealistic group of people who came
together to achieve something
extraordinary”, and warned of more action
to come in May. The City of London
Corporation vowed to find appropriate
accommodation for any vulnerable people
camped at the site, which had attracted
people with addiction and mental health
problems over the past few months.

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wednesday, 29 February, 2012

Foreign News 17

Iran says seeks
engagement on
its nuclear policy
GENEVA
ReUTeRS

Iran said on Tuesday there were two ways
of dealing with its “peaceful nuclear
programme,” either engagement or
confrontation, but that it preferred
cooperation. In a speech to the u.N.sponsored Conference on Disarmament,
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi accused
the West of double standards for
supporting Israel, the only Middle East
state that is outside the nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT). “We have
clearly stated time and time again there are
two alternatives in dealing with the Iranian
peaceful nuclear programme. One way is
engagement, cooperation and interaction.
The other is confrontation and conflict,”
Salehi said. “...Iran is confident of the
peaceful nature of its programme and has
always insisted on the first alternative.
When it comes to our relevant rights and
obligations, our consistent position is
thatIran does not seek confrontation, nor
does it want anything beyond its
inalienable, legitimate rights.”

China chemical
plant blast kills 13

HYDeRABAD: Indian police detain members of left-wing parties who blocked traffic during protests in support of a one-day general strike called by the trade unions on Tueday. AFP

Afghan bombs kill 14
Seven Taliban get killed in Nawzad district of Helmand
while trying to cut a pipe bomb and fitting it into a vehicle

g

KABuL

BEIJING
AfP

An explosion ripped through a north China
chemical factory Tuesday, killing at least 13
people and injuring 43, the government said
of the latest industrial accident to strike the
nation. The impact of the blast, which
occurred near Shijiazhuang city, capital of
Hebei province, was felt in at least three
nearby villages, the official Xinhua news
agency said. Photographs posted on the
Internet purportedly of the blast site showed a
large crater surrounded by debris. The walls of
several work shops that surrounded the site
had been destroyed. The cause of the blast is
still under investigation and rescue efforts are
ongoing, the State Administration of Work
Safety said on its website. The casualty toll
came from a preliminary report, the
administration said, indicating it could rise.
Safety standards are regularly flouted in
China, and workplace accidents remain
common despite repeated pledges by the
government to improve regulations and
oversight. Nearly 50,000 people died in workrelated accidents in the first nine months of
2011, the administration said earlier.

AfP

T

WO separate blasts in
southern Afghanistan killed
14 people, including a
group of insurgents who
were trying to rig an improvised bomb against Afghan and foreign
forces, officials said Tuesday.
In the volatile Nawzad district of
Helmand province a group of seven
Taliban militants died while trying to
cut a pipe bomb and fit it into a vehicle
on Monday, provincial spokesman
Daud Ahmadi told AFP. "The explosive-packed pipe detonated killing a
Taliban commander along with six of
his fighters," he said.
Roadside bombs are the most commonly used weapons by the Taliban,
who are leading a 10-year insurgency
and are responsible for the bulk of
deaths among the uS-led coalition and
Afghan security forces. On the same
day, seven people, including six
women, were killed in an explosion in
Nawa district of the same province inside a house used by a local Taliban
commander Mullah Manan, a senior
security official said. "We have intelligence that the Taliban commander was
making bombs inside the house," Mo-

hammad Ismail Hotak told AFP.
Helmand has experienced increasing militancy over the past couple of
years despite Afghan and NATO-led
operations. The number of civilian casualties, many of them killed by roadside bombs, hit a record of 3,021 last
year, according to a uN annual report.
On Monday, a Taliban suicide car
bomber targeted NATO troops at an
airport in eastern Afghanistan killing
nine people, on a seventh day of violence over the burning of the holy
Quran at a uS airbase. The insurgents
also said they were behind an attempt
to poison foreign troops, as the death
toll from unrest and protests that
spread to even usually peaceful parts of
the war-ravaged country hit about 40.
Six civilians, an Afghan soldier and two
local guards were killed in the bomb attack on the military base at Jalalabad
airport, but NATO troops escaped unhurt.
The Taliban said it was revenge for
the holy Quran burning. "The foreign
forces have insulted our religion and
this attack was revenge," Taliban
spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told
AFP. The hardliners also claimed that
an "Afghan cook" working on their behalf poisoned the food of NATO troops
at another base in the same province of

Nangarhar.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) launched an investigation after "traces of bleach" were
found in fruit and coffee, a spokesman
said. "There were no injuries, no fatality. The investigation is ongoing," said
Master Sergeant Nicholas Conner. On
Sunday, seven uS soldiers were
wounded in a grenade attack during an
anti-uS demonstration at their base in
northern Kunduz province, police said.
On Saturday, two uS advisers
were shot dead in the Interior Ministry in Kabul, just days after two uS
troops died as an Afghan soldier
turned his weapon on them as thousands of demonstrators approached
their base in the east. The uS embassy
has been in lockdown since the violence erupted and has warned of a
"heightened potential threat to American citizens in Afghanistan". uS Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said
Sunday that the deadly protests over
the burning of Holy Quran by uS soldiers "must stop". "We deeply regret
the incident that has led to this
protest, but we also believe that violence must stop and the hard work for
building a more peaceful and secure
Afghanistan must continue," she told
a news conference.

Japan feared
Fukushima could
‘finish’ tokyo: panel
TOKYO
AfP

A worst-case scenario sketched out by
the Japanese government foresaw the
end of Tokyo in a chain of nuclear
explosions as the Fukushima crisis
erupted, an independent panel said
Tuesday. Chief cabinet secretary Yukio
Edano told investigators: “I had this
demonic scenario in my head” that
nuclear reactors could break down one
after another.”If that happens Tokyo will
be finished”. Plans were drawn up for
the mass evacuation of the capital as
Edano — the government’s point man on
the nuclear crisis — fretted that reactors
along the coast could go into meltdown
and engulf the city of 13 million people.
The revelation came in an independent
report published Tuesday by a panel of
experts who were given free rein to
probe the events surrounding the
world’s worst nuclear crisis in a
generation. The panel said as the
situation on Japan’s tsunami-wrecked
coast worsened Fukushima operator
Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) had
wanted to abandon the plant, evacuating
its workers. But the utility, which
refused to co-operate with the study,
had been ordered to keep men on site by
then Prime Minister Naoto Kan. Experts
concluded that if the premier had not
stuck to his guns, Fukushima would
have spiralled further out of control,
with catastrophic consequences.

Sceptics question Putin ‘pre-election’ plot timing
MOSCOW
AfP

Scepticism grew Tuesday over the announcement of a plot to assassinate
Vladimir Putin which commentators said
appeared to have been revealed to help the
Russian leader’s presidential election campaign.
Russia’s state-controlled Channel One
had on Monday reported the arrest in the
ukrainian Black Sea city of Odessa of two
alleged militants with links to Chechnya
who it said were planning to assassinate
Putin in Moscow. The sensational report
was later confirmed both by ukraine’s Security Service (SBu) and the official
spokesman of Putin, who also described as

“blasphemous” any suggestion it was a preelection stunt. “For now, we do not know
for sure if this plot was for real or not. But
we know one thing. That Channel One told
us about this six days before the elections.
Such a well-timed plot,” said the political
commentator of Kommersant FM radio
Oleg Kashin. “Is it possible that such a sensation can appear on a Kremlin-controlled
channel a week before the elections without
the approval of Putin’s PR people?” he
asked. Yulia Latynina of the opposition Novaya Gazeta wrote sarcastically: “A Putin
election campaign would not be complete
if less than a week before the polls a plot
was not uncovered against the adored and
beloved leader.” According to security
sources quoted in the Russian press, an ac-

cidental explosion in Odessa that first gave
the suspects away took place on January 4,
killing one alleged plotter and leading to
the arrest of a wounded suspect.
The second surviving plotter went
on the run but was arrested on February
4, leaving many to question why the announcement was held back almost a
month until just ahead of the March 4
elections Putin is expected to win. The
political editor of radio Moscow Echo,
Anton Orekhov, said there was no doubt
that Islamist militants from the Caucasus were “capable of carrying out whatever act of terror and for them the
bloodier the better”. “But how welltimed this has all been,” he said, noting
it allowed the authorities to play on an

‘No fear’
moscoW: Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin said Tuesday he was unafraid
for his life and had grown used to
plots to kill him. “You cannot live with
constant fear — let them fear us. I
have been living with this since 1999,”
when Putin first became prime
minister before heading the Kremlin
in 2000-2008, Russian news agencies
quoted him as saying. AfP
idea of “the fatherland is in danger from
all sides and our leader is under threat
of physical annihilation”.

PDF E-Paper LHR_Layout 1 2/29/2012 8:50 PM Page 18

wednesday, 29 February, 2012

Djokovic tastes
victory and defeat
Page 21

england drop
Morgan from Sri
lanka squad

Team failed to
deliver, says Misbah
ABu DHABI

P

LONDON
AfP

England dropped Eoin Morgan from their
Test squad for the tour of Sri Lanka following the former Ireland batsman's dismal series against Pakistan in the united Arab
Emirates (uAE).
Middlesex left-hander Morgan averaged
just 13.66 against Pakistan as England were
whitewashed 3-0 in their first series since
climbing to the top of the world Test rankings.
His omission has given a chance to spin
bowling all-rounder Samit Patel, uncapped
at Test level, who will compete alongside
Ravi Bopara, a batsman and seam bowler,
for a place in England's middle order.
But England coach Andy Flower insisted
Morgan could recover from this setback.
"He has been severely tested out there
(uAE) by the Pakistan spinners as have all
our batsmen. "I still think he has a very exciting future in Test cricket, he's only 25
years old and he's a very talented player, a
very confident player and a very dangerous
player," the former Zimbabwe batsman
added. Seam bowler and hard-hitting batsman Tim Bresnan returned to the squad
after missing the Pakistan series with an
elbow injury and Graham Onions, brought
in as cover for the Yorkshireman, dropped
out of the 16-man party, that will again be
captained by Andrew Strauss.
And with pitches in Sri Lanka, as was the
case in the uAE, expected to take turn, Kent
off-spinner James Tredwell -- who played
one Tests in 2010 -- was called up to give
England four specialist slow bowlers with
Graeme Swann and left-armer Monty Panesar, who impressed against Pakistan, retained. While the main squad will depart
for Sri Lanka on March 10, seven members
of the squad will travel there ahead of their
of colleagues to begin preparations for the
Test series. England batting coach Graham
Gooch will lead the training camp involving
Strauss, batsman Ian Bell, wicketkeeper
Matt Prior, reserve gloveman Steven
Davies, Panesar, Patel and Tredwell
Geoff Miller, England's national selector,
said: "We have selected a squad that we feel
will be able to make best use of the conditions we are likely to encounter in Sri
Lanka. "There is no doubt that this Test series will be a challenging one but it is exciting that players have an opportunity to
demonstrate that they have learnt from the
disappointment of the Pakistan Test series
and can make further strides in developing
the skills needed to succeed on the subcontinent."
england test squad
Andrew Strauss (capt), James Anderson,
Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan Stuart Broad, Alastair Cook, Steven Davies
(wkt), Steven Finn, Monty Panesar, Samit
Patel, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior (wkt),
Graeme Swann, James Tredwell,
Jonathan Trott
Fixtures
March 15-17 v Sri Lanka Board XI, Colombo
March 20-22 v Sri Lanka Cricket Development XI, Colombo
March 26-30 v SRI LANKA 1ST TEST, Galle
April 03-07 v SRI LANKA 2ND TEST,
Colombo

AfP

AKISTAN'S Misbah-ul Haq on Tuesday cautioned
against a drastic overhaul in personnel after oneday and Twenty20 losses against England, warning that change for change's sake could be
damaging in the long-run. Misbah failed to guide
Pakistan to victory from a winning position in the third and final
T20 here on Monday, as England fought their way to a sensational five-run win to take the three-match series 2-1. That followed England's 4-0 drubbing of Pakistan in the one-day series,
leaving question marks on Misbah's handling of the team and
disgruntled fans chanting slogans against him.
Former Pakistan cricketing greats have also called for separate captains for Tests and limited overs.
Misbah, who previously guided Pakistan to a 3-0 Test series
win against England, said he understood fans' frustrations but
the limited overs defeats needed to be assessed dispassionately
by the Pakistan Cricket Board and the selection committee. "I
think we need to take this decision only after assessing our resources and if you have those resources then do that," he said.
"But if you don't have quality cricketers then it will harm. If
you change for the sake of change it will not help."
Chasing a modest 130, Pakistan were cruising and needed
23 off the last three overs, 17 off the last two and 13 off the last
but first umar Akmal (22) and then Misbah (28) got out, leaving
Pakistan agonisingly short. Misbah said Pakistan should not
overreact to the defeat. "All those who watch are sentimental
and they talk like this. You analyse by sitting down and if you
have a replacement for a player then you replace him. Drastic
changes will not help," he added. Pakistan are likely to bring in
former Australian batsman Dav Whatmore to replace Mohsin
Khan as coach. Their next assignment will be the Asia Cup in
Dhaka next month, where they face one-day world champions
India, as well as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Misbah said he was

disappointed by the series defeats but all the players were responsible. "I think we did try our best but England came back
strongly in the last three overs. Credit must be given to them. I
think we are responsible...
"We should have finished the match but we had no answer
to their good bowling. Stuart Broad gave just four runs in the
penultimate over while Jade Dernbach successfully defended
13 in the last.

England's last-gasp Twenty20 win
over Pakistan sent them home with
smiles on their faces - but was no true
consolation for their Test disappointments in the united Arab Emirates.
Stuart Broad's team prevailed,
against the odds for much of the deciding match of three, by five runs on the
back of Kevin Pietersen's unbeaten 62
and fine bowling from the captain
himself and Jade Dernbach. Nonetheless, after a 3-0 Test whitewash for the
world number ones, Broad admitted
the main prize had gone astray.
"The one-dayers and Twenty20s
don't make up for the Test matches,
because that was a hugely disappointing series for us," he said, having featured throughout in all three formats.
"It's been a learning experience here,
and you learn from your mistakes."
Pakistan seemed sure to win with
time and wickets to spare, in pursuit of
129 for six at the Zayed Stadium.
But on a pitch which had played to
the strengths principally of Pakistan's
spinners - Saeed Ajmal was again the
scourge of England with four for 23 seamers Broad and Dernbach did most
to close out victory in the final three
overs.
Broad is optimistic, however, that
England have learned from their tribulations against the spin of Ajmal and
others in these conditions and will
therefore be better equipped for two
Tests in Sri Lanka which start next
month. "We came over here wanting to
prove ourselves in Asia - and we didn't
do that," he said. "But we do have an
opportunity when we go to Sri Lanka
to do that.
"We'll have to learn quickly, going
to Sri Lanka - and that will be our

biggest test now. If we go there and
score runs, it shows we've got some
character in the batting line-up."
Broad is enthused already by the
resilience England displayed in the
desert, to win both series after the
Tests.

"To be the best team in the world,
you have to show character - and a lot
of the guys who've stayed on really did
that," he said. "To win the ODI series
4-0, and the Twenty20 series, is fantastic. We leave on a high; confidence
is high."

Pattinson returns for
australia in oDis
SYDNEY
AfP

Fit-again paceman James Pattinson was
Tuesday included in Australia's 13-man
squad for the remainder of the tri one-day
series against Sri Lanka and India.
Pattinson, 21, who took 21 wickets in his
first four Tests and was man-of-the-match
twice, developed a stress injury in his left
foot early last month and was sidelined
until recently.
Pattinson replaced Ryan Harris in the only
change to the Australia squad.
"James Pattinson is fit again and after impressive recent form in a Futures League
match in Adelaide comes into the squad at
expense of Ryan Harris," chief selector John
Inverarity said.
"Ryan remains strongly in contention for
selection for the Test matches on the tour of
the West Indies (in March-April)."
Inverarity said skipper Michael Clarke, who
missed Sunday's win over India, was making a good recovery from a back complaint
and was likely to play in Friday's ODI
against Sri Lanka in Melbourne.
Australia have already qualified for the
best-of-three match finals series, which
begin in Brisbane on Sunday.
Australia - Michael Clarke (capt), Shane
Watson (vice-capt), Dan Christian, Xavier
Doherty, Peter Forrest, Ben Hilfenhaus,
David Hussey, Michael Hussey, Brett Lee,
Clint McKay, James Pattinson, Matthew
Wade, David Warner.

england dominate
iCC t20 Rankings
LAHORE
STAff RePoRT

Current ICC World Twenty20 champion
England has continued its domination of
the Reliance ICC Twenty20 International (T20I) Rankings after winning its
series against Pakistan by 2-1 in Abu
Dhabi on Monday.
While England successfully retained its
number-one position, which it could
have lost had Pakistan won all the three
games, Kevin Pietersen has replaced
team-mate Eoin Morgan as the numberone batsman and Graeme Swann has
taken over the coveted number-one
bowling spot from Ajantha Mendis of
Sri Lanka.
England, after dropping one ratings
point, leads its closest rival South Africa
by 10 ratings points. ICC World Twenty
2009 winner Pakistan, which could have
jumped to second position had it won all
the matches of the series, now stays in
seventh position, 22 ratings points behind England.
Pietersen, who was the player of the
tournament in the West Indies two
years ago, has moved up one place to
the number-one spot after scores of 33,
17 and 62 not out. For contributing 112
runs in the series, Pietersen has earned
31 ratings points.
Martin Guptill of New Zealand is the
other batsman to jump in the latest
rankings. The opener has vaulted 14
places to second position after scoring
151 runs in the recently concluded series
against South Africa.
Richard Levi of South Africa, who
clubbed the fastest T20I century by belting five fours and 13 sixes (the most
sixes in a T20I to date) in a 51-ball 117,
has entered in 22nd position.
Rankings
rank
team
ratings
1.
England
129
2.
South Africa
119
3.
Sri Lanka
117
4.
New Zealand
114
5.
Australia
110
6.
India
108
7.
Pakistan
107
8.
West Indies
89
9.
Ireland
81
10.
Afghanistan
75
11.
Zimbabwe
51

PDF E-Paper LHR_Layout 1 2/29/2012 8:50 PM Page 19

wednesday, 29 February, 2012

sports 19

Kohli hero as India stay alive in tri-series
HOBART
AfP

V

IRAT Kohli blasted an unbeaten
133 off just 86 balls as India's
stunning seven-wicket bonus
point victory over Sri Lanka kept
them alive in the tri one-day series in Hobart
on Tuesday. The 23-year-old right-hander
produced his highest ODI score to supercharge the World Cup champions to a remarkable 321 for three off just 36.4 overs
and secure the extra point with 20 balls to
spare. The bonus point enabled India to
draw level with Sri Lanka on 15 points. The
World Cup runners-up now need to beat
Australia in Friday's last round-robin game
in Melbourne to reach the best-of-three
match finals.
Australia are already in the finals, which
get under way in Brisbane on Sunday.
Kohli was the stand-out man-of-thematch with 16 fours and two sixes in an ODI
featuring three century-makers and a combined total of 641 runs off 86.4 overs.
"That was the best one-day innings I've
played in my career because we needed to
pull off a win with a bonus point and we
were able to do that so I am really happy
with the performance," Kohli said.
"I have been believing in myself every
day and thinking I belong here and that I can
score runs at international level. That's the
biggest thing that has kept motivating me on
this tour." Kohli said India would take the
same nothing-to-lose attitude into the finals
should they make it. "We're going to think
each game is the last for us," he said. "We're
going to think of every game as a do-or-die
for us if we reach the finals.
India came into the Hobart match on
the back of three defeats and a tie and their
problems were magnified when in-form Sri
Lanka appeared to set a daunting target of
eight runs an over for them to claim the vital
bonus point.

Tillakaratne Dilshan equalled his best
one-day score of 160 and Kumar Sangakkara smashed a ton to push Sri Lanka's
total to 320 for four off 50 overs.
Dilshan took just 165 balls to reach his
total, battering 11 fours and three sixes, and
shared a 200-run second wicket stand with
Sangakkara to leave India with it all to do.
Sangakkara's 105 came off 87 balls -with eight fours and two sixes -- at the small
Bellerive Oval.
He flayed the Indian attack and has now
scored 10,152 runs in the limited overs game
at 37.88.
India skipper M.S. Dhoni praised his
team's mighty effort to overhaul Sri Lanka's
total.
"This was some of the best ODI cricket I
have been a part of. When you need 321 off
40, you need a good start," Dhoni said.
"We knew we had the firepower, but still
320 was more than we could digest. But
once we got that start, we knew we could
kick on."
Openers Virender Sehwag (30 off 16
balls) and Sachin Tendulkar (39 off 30 balls)
gave India a flying start and Gautam Gambhir chipped in with 63 off 64 balls.
It was Gambhir and Kohli's third-wicket
stand of 115 runs that accelerated India's
run-rate and they were well in the hunt
when Gambhir was run out with the score at
201 for three.
Raina (40 not out) carried on the big
hitting with Kohli and the pair added a further 120 runs off just 55 balls for India to
cruise to an unexpected comfortable victory.
In a brutal 35th over, Kohli smashed Lasith Malinga for two, six, four, four, four and
four to plunder 24 runs and leave India just
18 runs away from a sizzling bonus-point
victory.
"They had the licence to go for it today,
there was nothing left for them to do but to
go for it which they did," Sri Lanka captain
Mahela Jayawardene said.

"The wicket played pretty well, we didn't
pick up wickets up front and they batted exceptionally well.
"It's tough to try to stop somebody
(Kohli) going like that, everything he hit was
pretty solid today."
Jayawardene said Sri Lanka would
bounce back against Australia, who they already have beaten twice in the tournament.
"We've put ourselves in a situation that
it's in our control," he said.

lahoRe: Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif takes salute of the marching
athletes while the colourful view of the opening ceremony marked the start of the
Sports Festival at the national hockey Stadium. NADEEM IJAZ
LAHORE
STAff RePoRT

The Punjab Sports Festival 2012 with
theme Punjab da Passion splashed
into action here in a colourful opening
ceremony at the National Hockey Stadium on Tuesday. This sporting ex-

travaganza that started from tehil,
district and divisional level has now
entered into the final phase where
winners of all the level competitions
will lock horns for top honours.
In this provincial level competitions, general public, male and females schools, college, universities

while special arrangements have also
been made to showcase the skills of
blind, special, deaf and dumb persons
while veterans, bar association, departments, press club and corporate
sector have also been involved in the
final activity.
During the next 12 days competitions will be held in athletics, badminton, cricket, football, hockey,
volleyball, kabaddi, karate, basketball, weightlifting, wrestling, taekwondo, marathon race and cycling.
Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif was the chief guest of the
opening ceremony and declared the
festival open while hockey Olympians
Mohammad Saqlain, test cricketer
Taufeeq umar, athlete Shabana and
seeral other prominent players of the
province carried the flame to the caldarium. During the opening ceremony
karate, PT, gymnastic were displayed
while a large number of school and college children were brought to the National Hockey Stadium to make the
venue looked filled.

Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Zaka Ashraf
on Tuesday dismissed reports that Shoaib
Malik’s last minute inclusion in the one-day
squad for the England series was made under
pressure, and he clarified that the decision was
taken on the captain’s request. "I would like to
get the facts right. There was no players power
involved," said Ashraf. Former Pakistan captain
Shoaib Malik, was not originally named in the
ODI and T20 squads, announced by the PCB selectors last month for the England series.
He was included in the team after the Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq, called the PCB top
brass after the announcement of squad. Zaka
Ashraf confirmed that the Malik’s inclusion was
made only after the national skipper called him
and requested that the batting all-rounder be
sent to the uAE for the limited-overs series.
"The selection committee initially picked
the squad for the one-day series without Malik.
But Misbah-ul-Haq called me up and told me
that he felt Malik should be in the team,” revealed Ashraf, who took over as PCB chairman
in October, after Ijaz Butt’s term expired.
"Misbah contended that since he was in the
uAE and he knew better than the selectors that
Malik could prove to be very useful for the oneday series because of his ability to bowl and also

because the pitches were helping spinners," he
added further. The PCB chief claimed that he
had discussed Misbah’s request with the selection panel and after a long deliberation it was
decided to accept the request, as the board and
selectors did not want to receive the blame of
unwanted results. He further added that another reason behind Malik’s inclusion in the
one-day squad for the England series was to
give him a fair chance to press his claims.

Matt Kenseth won his second Daytona
500, holding off Dale Earnhardt in a
race delayed once for rain and then after
a frightening crash at the Daytona Inter
national Speedway.
Kenseth took the checkered flag after
rain postponed the race for 30 hours -the first time in the event's history it
has been delayed from a Sunday to
Monday.
Then with 40 laps to go Monday, Juan
Pablo Montoya escaped serious injury
when he lost control and slammed into
the back of a safety truck carrying jet
fuel, causing a fiery explosion that delayed the race another two hours.
Montoya was able to get out of his car
and walk away from the wreck on his
own. Mounted on the back of the truck
was a jet dryer with 757 litres (200 gallons) of kerosene used to help dry the
track's surface.
Earnhardt finished second, Greg Biffle
third, Denny Hamlin fourth and Jeff
Burton rounded out the top five.

Srikanth to endorse
for Pakistan-india
Blind Series
LAHORE
STAff RePoRT

Cricket Association for the Blind in
India president SP Nagesh, general secretary GK Mahantesh met former cricketer & BCCI selection committee
chairman Krishnamachari Srikanth in
Chennai.
Krishnamachari Srikanth has agreed to
endorse the forthcoming Indo-Pakistan
bilateral Blind Cricket Series to be held
in Chennai from March 10 to 17.
Matches are going to be played at IIT
ground, Adyar and SPIC YMCA ground
Nandanam with the able support from
local Tamil Nadu Blind Cricket Association.
The tournament will be inaugurated by
former Cricketer & BCCI Selection Committee chairman Shri. Krishnamachari
Srikanth along with Tamilnadu mayor
Shri. Saidai Duraiswamy, Worshipful
Mayor, of Tamil Nadu at IIT ground on
March 10th 2012.
This bilateral series would act as practice process for world cup scheduled in
December 2012 from Bangalore. Ten
countries Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan,
South Africa, West Indies, Sri Lanka
and Nepal would be taking part in this
event. Cricket Association for Blind in
India is affiliated to (WBCC) World
Blind Cricket Council is the apex body
for visually impaired cricket. This is the
first international cricket tournament
for the blind involving several countries
after almost 8 years.

Daytona BeaCh: Matt Kenseth, driver of the #17 Best Buy Ford, leads greg Biffle, driver of the #16
3M Ford, during the naSCaR Sprint Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona international Speedway. AFP

army down Police
in national Baseball

national polo

Colony Sugar begin
campaign in style
LAHORE

C

STAnDInGS

STAff RePoRT

OLONY Sugar has opened
its campaign for the Bank
Alfalah National Polo
Championship for the
Quaid-e-Azam Gold Cup
2012 in style winning the opening
match with a big margin here at the Lahore Polo Club ground.
From among the four matches
played on the opening day of the
championship on Tuesday, Colony
Sugar tapped the biggest margin
win hammering Al Khan-Ciroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 10-3
with Santiago Mendivil being the
star of the match having scored
eight goals of the 10. With this win
Colony Sugar not only earned two
valuable points but they also got
plus seven average which placed
them over the top of the standing.
In the other matches of the day,
Pakistan Army-Nadra edged ahead of
Guard Group/Newage 9-8 with
James Harper being the hero of the
winning team while the losing side

LAHORE
STAff RePoRT

TeAMS

P

W

L

Gf

GA

PTS

AVe

Colony Sugar

1

1

-

10

3

2

+7

BBJ Pipes

1

1

-

8

6

2

+2

Pakistan Army/nadra

1

1

-

9

8

2

+1

nestle

1

1

-

9

8

2

+1

Guard Group/newage

1

-

1

8

9

0

-1

Master Paints

1

-

1

8

9

0

-1

Hataff/Diamond Paints

1

-

1

6

8

0

-2

AL Khan/Ciros Pomodoro

1

-

1

3

10

0

-7

star was Hissam Ali Hyder.
BBJ Pipes, which is placed second on the leaderboard had moved
past Hattaf/Diamond Paints combination 8-6. Gerardo Mazzini led the
BBJ Pines to this hard-fought
thumping win while Vieri Antinori
played well for Hataff-Diamond but
did not match the guiles of Mazzini.
In the last game of the day, Nestle put aside Master Paints 9-8 and

in this win all the four riders of Nestle were instrumental while Masters
relied heavily on their foreign players, Ignacio Moore and Gaston
Moore. The umpires and referees
for the matches were Simon
Mclaren Tosh, Ignacio Del Tour,
Manuel Crespo, James Harper, Raja
Temur Nadeem, Gerardo Mazzini,
Shah Qubilai Alam Santiago Mendivil and Vieri Antinori.

Defending champions Army registered
third consecutive victory in the Shaheed
Kamran National Inter-departmental
Baseball Championship, defeating Police
in the second league stage 12-2 at the
uCPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ground here on Tuesday.
So far unbeaten, Army opened the account in the first innings when Imtiaz
Ali scored one , while Police could not
open the account. After no run was
made in the second innings by either
side, Police scored first run through
Ahsan Beg in the third innings as the
two teams were at 1-1.
But Army were in aggressive mood collecting four runs each in the fifth and
sixth innings, while conceding only one
in the fifth innings to take a firm lead of
9-2. For Army their Arif Senior (2), Arshad, Iftikhar, Zafar Iqbal, Majeed, umar
and Faqeer Hussain all contributed one
rune ach. Army continued its domination
in the seventh innings too as it added
three more runs through Rashid, Sajjad
and Arif Senior to seal the fate of the
match. In the next match Wapda will
take on Police on Wednesday.

Mahan vault to top 10
LONDON
AfP

Klitschko out to make Mormeck his 50th knock-out
BERLIN
AfP

Wladimir Klitschko plans on making JeanMarc Mormeck the 50th knock-out of his
career on Saturday, while the Frenchman
says he is determined to become his country's first world heavyweight champion.
World champion Klitschko will defend
his IBF, IBO, WBO and WBA titles against
Mormeck, who stepped up from cruiserweight just over two years ago, in Dusseldorf. The pair were scheduled to meet last
December, but kidney stones forced Klitschko, 35, to postpone the fight which will
be the 60th of his career.
"I'm ready for this challenge," said Klitschko at Monday's press conference. "I
still have the hunger and assume the task
will not be easy." Klitschko has not been
beaten since April 2004 when he suffered
a fifth round technical knock-out to Lamon
Brewster in Las Vegas and Mormeck wants
to break the ukrainian's winning streak
and take his titles.
""I know that I am underestimated
against a bigger and heavier opponent," the

39-year-old Mormeck told AFP. "I have an
iron will and I'm tough, I will give it my all.
"I have the mental strength too. Does he?"
This will be Mormeck's fourth heavyweight bout and Klitschko has said it will
be tough against a man who is considerably
shorter than he is with the challenger measuring 181 cms, compared to Klitschko's
height of 198 cms. Klitschko's brother Vitali
defended his WBC heavyweight title
against Britain's Dereck Chisora a fortnight
ago in Munich, but the sport's image was
tarnished by the post-fight brawl between
Chisora and ex-champion David Haye.
Chisora had also slapped Vitali in the
pre-bout weigh-in before running away.
Wladimir says he expects things to stay
peaceful, but is taking nothing for granted.
"We are only on Monday, things also
started peacefully in the press conference
between Vitali and Chisora," said the
younger Klitschko, who also suffered from
Chisora's boorish behaviour when he spat
in his face. "I am looking forward to the
open training and the weigh-in."
Despite his threats to dethrone the
champ, all bar three of Mormeck's 40 fights

have been at the lighter weight including a
technical knock-out at the hands of Haye at
cruiserweight in 2007.
The Frenchman has still enjoyed 22
knock-outs in 36 victories, but has suffered

four defeats in his career.
"Wladimir is a great boxer in every
way, but I've been preparing for years for
this moment," said Mormeck, who turns 40
in June.

istomin advances at Florida tennis
DeLraY Beach: Denis Istomin saved all seven break points he faced on serve en route to a 6-2, 6-3
win over Aussie Matthew Ebden in the first round of the Delray Beach Tennis Championships on Monday. The 25-year-old uzbekistani avenged a loss to the Ebden in their only other career meeting in Brisbane last year. The South African-born Ebden won that contest in straight sets 6-4, 6-4.
Istomin hammered seven aces, won 77 percent of his first-serve points in the 78 minute match on Monday. In other first round matches on Monday, Ryan Sweeting routed Donald Young in an all-uS match
6-1, 6-1 and Israel's Dudi Sela defeated Denis Kudla, of the uSA, 6-4, 6-3. The 82nd-ranked Sweeting is
making his fourth appearance at this event. He reached the quarter-finals last year. Istomin is ranked
51st in the world which is just off his career high ranking of 40th in 2010. He is 9-5 this year and two
weeks ago he reached the final of the San Jose Open where he lost to Canadian Milos Raonic. Istomin advances to the second round where he will play the winner of a match between American veteran Andy
Roddick and Germany's Philip Petzschner. Istomin has played tennis since a young age but he did not
touch a racquet for two years after suffering serious injuries in a car smash at age 15 while travelling to a
Futures tournament in Tashkent, uzbekistan. He needed more than 80 stitches and spent three months
in the hospital after undergoing surgery for a badly damaged leg. Istomin resumed training in 2003 and
won his first Challenger tournament two years later. He made his Grand Slam debut a year later at the
Aussie Open, losing in straight sets to world No. 1 Roger Federer. AfP

australia's
twitter warning
to athletes
SYDNEY

AfP

ORLD number one Novak Djokovic
experienced the emotions of victory
and defeat as he re-started his season at
the Dubai Open with an unusual dual
role on Monday. Djokovic's 6-4, 6-2 win
against Cedric-Marcel Stebe, a talented and improving
young German, was a resourceful performance given his
five-week absence from competition since his exhausting
Australian Open triumph. But it was preceded by a
Djokovic defeat. That was his 20-year-old younger brother
Marco, whom he was mentoring, and whose fate he seemed
to experience almost as strongly as his own.
Djokovic the triple Grand Slam champion, experimented with some extra net attacks and different tactical
ploys, and yet retained the capacity for a tighter focus after
Stebe got him break point down at 1-2 in the second set.
But Djokovic the wild card entry was playing only his
third match on the ATP Tour and was unable to do himself
much justice during a 6-3,
6-2 loss to Andrey Golubev. That may be a part
consequence of spending
much of last year sidelined
after wrist surgery. But
Marco also offered insights
into the pressures of having such a famous sibling.
"There are a lot of positive and negative things
about being his brother,
you know," he said.
"Financially,
you
know, I have all I need and
can get the coaches and the
right practice environment. But everybody expects you to be like your
brother, which is really
tough to achieve. "Sometimes I have an advantage
because maybe opponents
get scared. But others
think 'he's Novak's brother,
so I must beat him.' And
that can be tough." Novak

sympathized. "He has to face the pressure of having the
Djokovic surname," he said. "He's trying to fight with his
mind more than with his game. When he is able to focus on
that and not on his doubts he can become a world class
player." Novak was also in no doubt that playing was easier
than coaching. "It was difficult for me to sit courtside," he
said. "I have not done it too much.
"At least when I'm playing I know what's going on. But
I was happy my brother got a wild card. He is not at his level
yet, but he's getting there." Novak Djokovic now has a day
off before facing the winner between Omar Awadhy, a wild
card from the uAE, and Sergiy Stakhovsky, the fierce-hitting ukrainean who is capable of a much higher level than
his current ranking in the seventies. On Tuesday Roger
Federer, the Grand Slam record-holder, will start against
Michael Llodra, the runner-up at the Marseille Open on
Sunday. And Andy Murray, the first Briton since the 1930's
to reach three Grand Slam finals, will face Michael Berrer,
a qualifier from Germany, while Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the
world number five from France, will play Marcos Baghdatis,
the former Australian Open runner-up from Cyprus.

Hina Khar wants cricket ties
resumption with India
ABu DHABI

AfP

AfP

Australian athletes have been warned
against using Twitter during competition after officials found competitors
tweeting during last week's Olympic diving test event in London.
Mike Tancred, the Australian Olympic
Committee (AOC) director of media and
communications, fears athletes tweeting
during competition will be distracted.
Coaches and team managers needed to
implement rules to eliminate the risk of
social media undermining performances
at this year's London Games, he said,
but there would be no blanket ban.
"The problem was highlighted at the
diving test event in London where athletes were tweeting during the competition," Tancred said in AOC's London
Olympics newsletter emailed this week.
"Diving officials stopped the use of social media during the competition,
which was also a World Cup event, once
they learned it was happening."
According to the AOC, one diver's tweet
during competition read: "I'm a novice. I
will stop tweeting next round. Distraction!" The International Olympic Committee will allow athletes to use social
media such as Facebook, YouTube and
Twitter during the Games because it is
keen to encourage more youth interest
in the Olympics.
Tancred said some sports in Australia,
such as cycling, had specific policies
about the use of social media during
training and competition.
Australia's athletes were encouraged to
use social media responsibly and during
downtime in the village but their use of
it should conform to the Olympic spirit,
Tancred added.

Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Monday called for the
resumption of cricket ties with archrivals India.
"Pakistan pushes for cricket ties
with every country, especially with
India," Khar told reporters while
watching the third and final
Twenty20 between Pakistan and
England here on Monday.
"I remember that prime minister
Manmohan Singh said that it
(cricket) is a great way to go and if
both the governments feel it's a great
way then we should go that way."
Khar said the Pakistan Cricket
Board (PCB) was also endeavouring
to revive the ties.
"PCB chairman has written letters to the Indian Board and when I
was in India (last year) I noticed a
great deal of keenness on the part of
India and the International Cricket
Council (ICC) to revive this brand of
cricket," said Khar.
"Let me clearly articulate that
the Pakistan government not only
supports but also pushes that international cricket should be played
among all countries."
India stalled all bi-lateral cricketing ties with Pakistan following
terrorists attacks on their commercial hub Mumbai in November 2008
which New Delhi blamed on militants based across the border.
Despite both countries slated to
play in 2012 under the ICC Future
Tours Programme, India's hectic
schedule has been the main hurdle
in the revival of the ties.

Pakistan last toured India in
2007, while India featured in the
Asia Cup held on their neighbour's
grounds in 2008.
Khar said Pakistan prime minister Yousuf Raza Gillani -- who attended the World Cup semi-final in
Mohali on Singh's invitation in
March last year -- also wants IndoPak cricket to be revived.
"Our prime minister has always
talked about the resumption and
India is also very enthusiastic. The
only problem is scheduling and that
is why there have been problems but
cricket plays a huge role in bringing
people of both the countries together
so it should be played.
Khar said Pakistan believes in
cricket diplomacy.
"We have always believed in
cricket diplomacy and there is a harmony in cultures of both the coun-

tries. We both are good at cricket
and people on both sides love the
game. People in Pakistan are bound
by cricket and we need that unity at
the moment." Khar said the security
situation in Pakistan was conducive
to hosting international cricket.
"..you must have seen the situation in Pakistan has improved considerably in the last few moths. The
year 2009 and 2008 were bad but
2011 and 2012 a lot of normalcy has
come back.
"I don't think there is as much of
a security risk as is perceived. Polo
international players come to Pakistan and they go unnoticed and that
is why they can afford to come."
International cricket has been
suspended in Pakistan since terrorists attacks on the Sri Lankan team
bus in Lahore three years ago.
Khar said her government was
ready to provide top-level security to
international teams.
"The high profile of cricket obviously makes the difference, for
cricket we can provide the type of security that is required," said Khar,
whose government has promised to
put high-level security in place for
the Bangladesh team tour.
Pakistan has invited Bangladesh
for a three-match one-day series in
April. Khar said cricket and other
cultural activities will improve Pakistan's image.
"We have always maintained that
cultural outreach is needed. The way
Pakistanis are portrayed is not correct so we need to cultural heritage
and that is the best way to reach the
people and create a good impression," said Khar.

watch It LIve
ESPN
Bangladesh
League final
5.00 PM

Bekele to run in Dublin
ahead of olympics
LONDON
AfP

Distance running great Kenenisa Bekele is
to compete in the Great Ireland Run in
Dublin on April 15, organisers said Tuesday, as part of his preparations for
the London Olympics.
Reigning Olympic 5,000 metres and
10,000m champion Bekele finished way
down the field in the three kilometre
Great Edinburgh Cross Country last
month.
Bekele was one of 35 athletes suspended
from international competition by the
Ethiopian Athletics Federation after they
failed to show up for a mandatory training camp. But the ban was rescinded just
days after it was imposed and now Bekele
is set to return to the city of one of his
greatest triumphs. It was 10 years ago,
when aged just 19, that Bekele became
the first and only male athlete ever to lift
the IAAF World Cross Country long and
short course titles in the same year, at
Dublin's Leopardstown racecourse.
And according to British former Olympic
medallist Brendan Foster, of race organisers Nova International, Bekele's decision to compete in the Great Ireland Run,
a 10 km event, could herald the start of a
career as a marathon runner after the
2012 Games.
"I was delighted when Bekele's agent Jos
Hermens rang me and asked whether we
could find a slot in the SPAR Great Ireland Run for him and of course there was
no way I was going to say 'no' to such an
outstanding legend," Foster said Tuesday.

PDF E-Paper LHR_Layout 1 2/29/2012 8:50 PM Page 22

wednesday, 29 February, 2012

President inks
20th amendment
into law

22

SC resumes hearing on Asghar Khan’s plea today
ISLAMABAD

A

MASooD ReHMAn

three-member Supreme Court
bench headed by Chief Justice
Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry will
today (Wednesday) resume hearing on a petition filed by Air Marshall (r) Asghar Khan some 16 years ago against
the distribution of million of rupees by the InterServices Intelligence (ISI) to anti-PPP politicians
to influence the 1990 general election.
The other members of the bench are Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq
Parvez. The petitioner will appear in-person

along with his lawyer Habibul Wahabul
Khairi. Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq
will also appear on notice.
Senior advocates Abdul Hafeez Pirzada,
Habibul Wahabul Khairi and Muhammad
Akram Sheikh, as well Salman Akram Raja
and others, including former army chief Mirza
Aslam Beg will also be appearing.
Top legal brains and politicians believe
that the case would have irrevocable effects on
the forthcoming general elections, besides
shaking everyone from the top to bottom in
the executive and military establishments. In
June 1996, a human rights petition was filed
by Asghar Khan with the Supreme Court mak-

ing the retired chief of army staff General
Mirza Muhammad Aslam Beg, former ISI DG
Lt General (r) Asad Durrani and Younis Habib
of Habib and Mehran Bank as respondents.
In his petition, Asghar Khan had asked
then chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah to take appropriate action on a statement by then interior minister Maj Gen (r) Naseerullah Khan
Babar in the National Assembly that: “The ISI
collected some Rs 140 million from the Habib
Bank Ltd and distributed among a number of
politicians prior to the 1990 elections with a
view to manipulate the results in favour of the
Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI)”.
Sajjad Shah was hearing the case when he

was shown the door in November 1997 by his
fellow judges following a mutiny, allegedly manoeuvred by the then government of Nawaz
Sharif. The Asghar Khan case, commonly
known as the “Mehrangate” scandal, would
particularly dent the political image of the
PML-N. Besides, lawyers and politicians, civil
society activists and even military men also believe that the repercussions of “Mehrangate”
scandal would be much reverberating and
more pervasive. In his petition, Asghar Khan
had sought punishment for all politicians who
had received funds from the ISI.

IsLamaBaD: President
Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday
signed the 20th Constitutional Amendment Bill into
law at the Aiwan-e-Sadr and
gave the credit for its passage
to the maturity and political
wisdom of the political parties and the parliament. “The
20th Constitutional Amendment Bill 2012 was passed by
the National Assembly on
14th February 2012 and by
Senate on 20th February
2012,” said an official statement. Presidential
Spokesman Farhatullah
Babar said the president,
while signing the bill, felicitated the entire nation and
political parties. The president termed the legislation a
landmark development in
strengthening democracy
and ensuring free, fair and
transparent elections under
an independent election
commission and neutral interim set-ups. The bill seeks
to amend Articles 48, 214,
215, 216, 218, 219, 224, and
adds a new Article 224A in
the constitution to make the
Election Commission of Pakistan “truly independent” for
holding free and fair elections. The Bill also gives legal
cover to the by-elections conducted by the chief election
commissioner and provide
for mechanisms to set up interim government to hold
polls in the future. The
spokesman added that the
president, while acting upon
the advice of the prime minister, had also withdrawn
summoning of the National
Assembly session, earlier
summoned on March 1,
2012. STAFF REPORT